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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28056681">A Guide to Properly Socializing Keith: Featuring a Time Loop</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Fools_Errand/pseuds/A_Fools_Errand'>A_Fools_Errand</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Voltron: Legendary Defender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alien Planet, Attempt at Humor, Blue Paladin Lance (Voltron), Bonding, But he's gonna learn some stuff about being social, Confused Team, Conspiracy Theorist Keith (Voltron), Cuban Lance (Voltron), Dialogue Heavy, Fluff and Angst, I think?, Keith &amp; Shiro (Voltron) are Siblings, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith is pining so hard for Lance, Keith isn't going to magically become an extrovert, Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, M/M, My First Fanfic, POV Keith (Voltron), Palm Springs (2020) - Freeform, Pining Keith (Voltron), Red Paladin Keith (Voltron), Smart Lance (Voltron), Soft Keith (Voltron), Soft Lance (Voltron), Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), Texan Keith (Voltron), Time Loop, but hes also an idiot, i don't make the rules, that's a tag?? amazing, they are both very smart idiots, whatever is possessing my mind to write this does</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:41:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>32,775</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28056681</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Fools_Errand/pseuds/A_Fools_Errand</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Turns out, all it takes is a time loop to get Lance and Keith to be friends. Also as his new friend, Lance now has to catch up the feral desert child on how to function in a society. This should be just peachy. Good thing they literally have all the time in the world.</p><p>(Or: Keith's going to be dragged through social skills 101 kicking and screaming, but they'll get there eventually.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Allura &amp; Coran &amp; Hunk &amp; Keith &amp; Lance &amp; Pidge | Katie Holt &amp; Shiro, Keith &amp; Lance (Voltron), Keith &amp; Shiro (Voltron), Keith &amp; Voltron Paladins, Keith/Lance (Voltron)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>67</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>168</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Voltron</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Introductory Step 1 of 2: Getting Stuck in a Time Loop</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is inspired by Palm Springs on Hulu. Please go watch it if you haven't already, it's a great movie. I take some plot devices from the movie (like the glowing cave or learning physics), but the plot for this story isn't the same as the movie at all really.<br/>Song choices (aka what the characters are listening to) are songs I would put in a time loop movie if I was directing one. They are usually only mentioned, not written out like lyrics. If you've got a suggestion for one, hit me up cause I love that stuff.<br/>Other than that, this is my first time writing fanfic. Just gotta let everyone know, I am very bad at spelling and grammar, but I am trying my best (with help from auto-correct)! Dialogue is meant to be a little more loosey-goosey cause I think it works better/feels more natural. Otherwise if you see something, feel free to comment and I'll fix it!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After around a week of scattered attacks from Galran forces, Voltron had finally gotten the enemies to retreat from the surrounding solar system. Aeoaza, the largest life-hosting planet in the area, had expressed their great admiration to Voltron by inviting the paladins to recuperate and celebrate their victory while staying at the Ambassador Penthouse in the center of Aeoaza’s biggest city. </p>
<p>The princess and the black paladin both agreed to stay for a couple of days as the Castle required minor repairs from the fight. According to Coran, Aeoaza was famous for its beautiful intergalactic resorts, so that didn’t hurt the decision either.</p>
<p>That’s how the team found themselves in an oasis paradise resting for what seemed like the first time in forever. Nearly half of the planet was covered in deserts with various large rivers and oases running through it. When they got closer to the ground, the landscape reminded Keith of a mix of the desert he knew personally near the Garrison and the Middle Eastern deserts he used to study back in public school. </p>
<p>Aeoaza itself was extraordinarily arid, but the city they were staying in was designed to allow the warmth without it being unbearably dry and gross.</p>
<p>The penthouse the planet offered looked like a recreation of an Egyptian palace if it had been slapped on top of a skyscraper. It was undeniably beautiful in its architecture. Vines of whatever native plant they had on the planet wrapped around the carved orange sandstone and ran into the large open garden area. </p>
<p>The entire team, however, didn’t take much time to appreciate the scenery or explore. Everyone was bone-tired from the week-long fight. Even Lance was quiet as their alien guide showed them to their individual rooms. Keith thinks he saw Hunk almost fall asleep standing up, which would have been terrible for Pidge who was in the ‘sleep/collapse’ zone.</p>
<p>Keith didn’t take much time to say goodnight to the rest of Voltron as he stumbled into his room. He didn’t even change from his gear, deciding that his comfort level was a tomorrow-Keith’s problem. Blissful sleep washed over him as soon as his head hit the pillow…</p><hr/>
<p>...A blaring alarm came from the clock near his bed. Keith violently tried to stab wherever the stupid noise was coming from. He groggily got up and remembered that he’d asked Shiro to train with him today. </p>
<p><em> Why do I feel so uncomfortable? </em>He mentally groaned. Then, he looked down. Oh, right, his past-self decided to wear the heavy armor to bed. Sometimes Keith hated his past self’s decisions. </p>
<p>He stretched and changed into a new set of his gear without much haste. He felt a slight happiness wash over him as they finally got a day off from fighting the Galra. <em> Time to go fight Shiro</em>, Keith thought. </p>
<p>As he was walking to wherever the training room was in this place (he probably shouldn’t have completely zoned out their tour guide), he came across Lance being weird. Or, well, weirder than normal. </p>
<p>The blue paladin was sitting on top of a large space-cherry-shaped pool float sipping from what looked like the planet's equivalent of a coconut. He was spinning in slow circles alone in the large infinity pool in the open section of the penthouse hallway. <em> Very </em> weird.</p>
<p>In addition to this, Lance had a speaker -<em> where did he get that? </em>- in the float’s cupholder. It was playing some old song Keith didn’t know. The red paladin briefly wondered how many songs Lance must’ve had loaded on his phone before they left Earth to have that old of a song on it. Back on topic though, Lance was being highly suspicious.</p>
<p>“What the hell are you doing?” Keith asked, squinting at him as if the sharpshooter was going to jump out of the pool for some dumb prank. Lance, instead, lazily lifted his head to look exactly where Keith was standing.</p>
<p>The boy being questioned cocked an eyebrow and lowered his red heart sunglasses -<em> seriously, where is he getting these things? </em>- to look at Keith. </p>
<p>“Hmmm, Listening to <em> Space Oddity </em>... Contemplating time and the nature of our reality... Drinking what I think is the equivalent of a pina colada. Wanna join?” He then motioned with his stupid drink that had a stupid heart-shaped straw in it as if to invite Keith to take a sip.</p>
<p>“I- Huh- What-,” Keith fumbled for words and scrunched up his face, “Why are you so weird?” He finally settled on. </p>
<p>The blue paladin seemed to look into his very soul for a second before deciding something beyond Keith’s understanding. He placed his sunglasses up and tilted his head back into a resting position.</p>
<p>“Yeah, I’m not really feeling up to it today. Buh-bye Keithy boy!” Lance blew a kiss and then proceeded to spin his floaty so that he was facing the opposite direction.</p>
<p>Keith sputtered and felt a blush creep up his neck. He couldn’t help but stomp away as angry as he was confused. <em> Stupid Lance and his stupid pool… whatever</em>, Keith’s very much not embarrassed mind supplied.</p>
<p>Eventually, the team’s swordsman stomped close enough to the training room that Shiro could see him. Or more likely, hear him.</p>
<p>“There you are! You should check this place out!” Shiro said loudly from the ambassadors' training room. The black paladin waved while hanging onto the door and smiled at Keith. </p>
<p>Keith perked up and started walking faster to meet Shiro. He liked hanging out with Shiro, he knew how to react and interact with Shiro. </p>
<p>Keith wasn't dumb (if the top of the class scores were anything to go by), but interacting with new people always made him feel like he was. He didn’t know what to say. He always fell back on being silent, which was apparently taken as rude and/or scary. Worse was when he actually tried to talk and then either he or the other person would get frustrated because Keith would say the wrong thing.</p>
<p>Not Shiro though. His friend always seemed to know what he was trying to say. He was hoping that the other paladins were also getting to a point like Shiro, but he always felt like it was fifty steps backward for one step forward, especially with Lance who forgot their <em>one bonding moment</em>.</p>
<p>“Everywhere the light touches is our kingdom, young one.” Shiro misquoted the Lion King, bringing the red paladin out of his thoughts by ruffling his hair. Keith broke away from the hand in his hair and tried to smooth it down. </p>
<p>“Wow, you trying to add to your list of quotes? I don’t think that one tops ‘patience yields focus’, try again next time.” Shiro pouted at that. Keith couldn’t help the smile that snuck onto his face while he walked into the open room. </p>
<p>Three of the walls were intricately carved with rows of weaponry and machines stacked against them. The last of the wall opposite the entrance had large open arches that let cool air into the room. The space-ivy crawled across the wall from the planters on the outside of the building. Keith could see that Shiro was letting him explore a bit primarily near the knife rack (because of course, he was). He put down the most intriguing knife he found and decided that today was a hand-to-hand combat day.  </p>
<p>“So, want to fight?” Keith asked with all his usual social grace. </p><hr/>
<p>The training lasted a long enough time where both participants were nearly drenched in sweat. As per usual at this point, more advanced tactics had to be deployed to win the battle.</p>
<p>Keith intentionally moved a little too close to the side of his competition’s face and smudged the absolute slightest amount of Shiro’s eyeliner. </p>
<p>“Oops, sorry.” The red paladin smirked.</p>
<p>Shiro gasped in fake-shock before looking over Keith’s shoulder quickly. He proceeded to smile like a bad anime villain, “You fool... You have given me permission to use my ultimate power!”</p>
<p>Shiro briefly reached around Keith and yelled out “Hey Lance!”.</p>
<p>Keith’s head whipped around to see Lance standing in the door, still wearing those plastic heart glasses. Lance gave a peace sign and then a very smug grin. <em> What’s he planning-? </em></p>
<p>Shiro took this moment of distraction and jabbed his opponent in the stomach, sending him tumbling down on the mat. The black paladin’s full belly laugh was worth the humiliation, Keith told himself.</p><hr/>
<p>Eventually, Allura called all the paladins into one of the larger rooms in the penthouse. There were some ground rules of engagement for the celebration being hosted that night that they all had to follow. Apparently ‘small gathering’ meant a hundred or so diplomats with a speech from Madam President Ahe O’L’fba. Keith, as Shiro would probably say, got very broody at the idea of another big party.</p>
<p>According to Allura, the social norms for Aeoaza were somewhat similar to Earth’s at least. The only thing she warned them about was a complicated greeting they had to give to honor the planet’s President. Other than that, they just had to act dignified and be good representatives for Voltron.  </p>
<p>Keith noticed two of the other paladins weren’t really paying attention. One was Pidge, who was working on some coding project (normal), and the other was Lance, who was leaning halfway over the table as if nearly asleep (not normal). </p>
<p>“Lance! Are you even listening?” Allura finally acknowledged her blue paladin’s lackadaisical posture.</p>
<p>“Party tonight, greet the President in a special way, be professional, yadda yadda yadda.” Lance replied, still slouching. Allura seemed satisfied, albeit a bit peeved with the lazy answer, and was going to continue before Lance cut her off.</p>
<p>“You know if I’m being honest, the more interesting thing is the romance between the President’s daughter, Hon, and her friend, Ey A’B’era. I mean, if they get together -which they are both interested in, but both too scared to ask- it’d be ‘HonEy’. How cute is that?”</p>
<p>The whole team looked at Lance like he’d started speaking Galran and spouting druid curses at them. Except for Hunk, who looked like he was seriously considering whatever the hell Lance just said.</p>
<p>“Aww, that would be cute!” Hunk happily decided.  </p>
<p>“I know right!!!” </p>
<p>“Lance, you are not- you can’t get involved in a romantic affair of random people.” Shiro tried to pull rank. </p>
<p>“I’ve asked both of them separately! They both admitted that they want to be girlfriends-”</p>
<p>“No, no, that’s not the issue! I mean, well, it’s good that they both want a relationship and it’s important to have discussions with the people in your life about your feelings-” Shiro seemed to be losing himself in dad-mode. Allura stepped in swiftly.</p>
<p>“Lance, you are <em> not </em> going to be getting involved in the politics of a relationship. This is just a casual banquet.” Allura, channeling every bit of her leadership energy, demanded.</p>
<p>“Alright, fineeee, not tonight…” Lance huffed and sunk back into his chair.</p>
<p>“Not<em> ever </em>.” Allura side-eyed him heavily before deciding to continue with her briefing about this solar system's celebratory gathering.</p>
<p><em> When did he have time to meet these people? </em> Keith wondered. If someone (Shiro) didn’t take away all of his red string and pins, Lance would have definitely been on Keith’s conspiracy board for that whole interaction.</p>
<p>Once the meeting was officially over, the red paladin watched Lance like a hawk. It’s clear something was up and Keith was never one to leave things be. Also, if Keith happened to miss the ‘small gathering’ because the blue paladin appeared to be ducking out and leaving the penthouse, was it really his fault? No, Keith’s completely unbiased mind ruled. </p>
<p>With all the stealth training he had received during his missions against the Galra, Keith followed Lance. The sun was setting, but it wasn’t too terribly dark in the city. <em> This should be easy, </em>Keith confidently thought.</p><hr/>
<p>It wasn’t easy. Somehow Lance knew how to hotwire the planet’s equivalent of a hoverbike (<em> how??? </em>), and managed to evade Keith’s attempts to track him. At this point, Keith had to pull the Paladin of Voltron card to get a different hoverbike from a particularly grateful citizen with a promise that he’d eventually return it.</p>
<p>In the back of his mind, Lance’s actions were actually worrying him, though he’d never admit it. Questions swirled in his head like <em> Why was he running? Where was he going? What was happening to make the usually extremely sociable boy act so odd?  </em></p>
<p>Keith, having had a lot of experience and training with hoverbikes, was eventually able to catch up with Lance. It was truly night now, but he had the street lights to help him keep track. He kept a little bit of distance to not raise the blue paladin’s suspicions. He wanted to see where Lance was even going.</p>
<p>They had reached far past the edge of the city and into the surrounding oasis before Lance finally stopped and got off his hoverbike. Keith followed suit as close as he could while still hiding. The forestry had met the true start of the desert. Red-striped rocks jutted up from the ground leaving a canyon-like structure that surrounded the sandy road in between. </p>
<p>Lance’s head was tilted upwards towards the night sky. Keith couldn’t see much of his facial expression from here, but body language alone told him that Lance was contemplating something.</p>
<p>Keith tried to follow his gaze as if what Lance was looking for was physically above them. It was a breathtaking view. Somehow, the light pollution from the city hadn’t affected the view of the sky above them. What Keith would bet was that almost every star naturally visible could be seen through the top of the canyon.</p>
<p>For a long time, his only constant companion was the stars above his desert shack. The light pollution from the garrison was intentionally very low so that astronomers could do their work unobstructed. Every clear night, a vast network of constellations colored the sky in ways that no other man-made light could.</p>
<p>Sometimes, Keith forgot about the little things that drew him to the universe in the first place. They were so far away from Earth that the stars had a totally different set of constellations, completely unique to this planet. No humans had ever seen how the desert meet these stars except him and-</p>
<p><em> Wait a minute. Where the hell did Lance go? Stupid stars! </em> Keith scowled. He lost Lance while looking up at the alien night sky.</p>
<p>He looked for tracks, but the small breezes blowing through the canyon were quick to shift the sand. The indents that stayed from the sharpshooter’s feet blew away before Keith could follow. Being alone in a desert was something the red paladin knew very well, but trying to follow someone in the desert was absurdly hard.</p>
<p>Keith looked up to try and maybe spot a flash of blue and white, but he couldn’t see any. Instead, he saw a mysteriously glowing cave cut into the rocky canyon.</p>
<p>“No point in driving back now…” A voice that could barely be heard said. <em> Lance</em>, Keith’s mind bet. The person’s -Lance’s- shadow grew as it walked towards whatever light was in the cave until it disappeared altogether. Keith ran towards it before slowing down once he remembered his goal of sneaking after the other paladin.</p>
<p>Chills ran down Keith’s back the closer he snuck to the cave. <em> You shouldn’t be here, turn around</em>, some sense of self-preservation whispered. Too bad Keith had never listened to that voice before and wasn’t going to start now. </p>
<p>When he looked into the cave, a glowing light radiated outward nearly touching him. It was as if it was inviting him to come in and take a closer look. If Keith were a different person, maybe he would have thought not to walk towards the abnormal fluorescent light that seemed to have no source. But he was Keith, and Keith kept walking.</p>
<p>Once he got close enough, he reached out to the light and felt himself drift away for a second and...</p><hr/>
<p>Keith woke up the next day in his room at the Ambassador’s penthouse. Just as hot and arid as it was yesterday, a deep feeling of '<em>this is not your day'</em>  washed over the red paladin as he got ready. </p>
<p>Firstly, his head was pounding. It felt like it was going to split open at any moment. Secondly, he didn’t remember getting back to his bed. Just the weird dream he had last night about the desert and Lance and a glowing cave. He must’ve really crashed in his bed after the party or something. Thirdly, he fell asleep in his uniform again, which meant he was just as sore as yesterday. And last, but not least, his room’s clock must be broken because that screeching alarm was back.</p>
<p>He got up sluggishly, not even bothering to change out of his gear, and went to go talk to Shiro about a new clock. Or ask permission to throw the clock out the window. Either or.</p>
<p>Lance was once again in the pool, but this time he had a pizza-shaped pool float. This one didn’t have a cupholder, but that didn’t stop Lance from having the speaker on the side of the pool. The apparent song of the day was <em> Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows</em>. As Lance would probably say, it was a very Lance thing to listen to.</p>
<p><em> Maybe the songs and the pool remind him of his home</em>, suggested a voice in his mind that sounded similar to Shiro's. It made Keith feel bad for being skeptical of the obviously homesick boy. Maybe if he tried to be nice, they could have just one normal interaction. He mustered up whatever social skills he could and tried to make small talk with his fellow Paladin.</p>
<p>“Lance, is your clock broken too?” Keith asked. He tried to emulate the casual conversations that he would have with Shiro.</p>
<p>“Huh? Yeah, I guess-”</p>
<p>Lance suddenly cut himself off as he looked up at Keith like the red paladin had just destroyed all his face masks and pushed himself up so fast that his drink went flying into the pool. </p>
<p>“You-?” Lance barely got to make out before his sudden movement made the pool float flip out from underneath him, sending the sharpshooter into the water.</p>
<p>The cheerful music playing from Lance’s speaker made it all the more surreal as the blue paladin flailed underwater, clearly struggling to shove the large up-side-down float from above him. Keith watched completely stunned as the entire thing went belly-up, literally.</p>
<p><em> Why do I ever try to socialize??, </em> Keith thought as he fought through the shock and frantically tried to figure how to stop a drowning-by-floaty accident. He swiftly jumped into the pool, in his full gear no less, and shoved the pool float away allowing for Lance to pull his head back up. He grabbed Lance’s shoulder to keep him from wilting back into the pool as the blue paladin coughed out the water in his lungs. Lance was side-eyeing Keith incredulously while doing so.</p>
<p>Once Lance finally regained his air-breathing status, he practically screamed into Keith’s ear probably the oddest question he’d heard in a long time - “You’re in the time loop, too?!?”</p>
<p>Keith starred in absolute confusion. Had Lance hit his head or something? The red paladin wanted to ask if Lance was okay. Or ask what Lance was talking about. Or even ask what the hell that reaction was.</p>
<p>Lance looked at Keith and Keith looked at Lance. </p>
<p>“What?” was all that Keith could blurt out.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Oops, Keith got stuck in a time loop. It's confusing to get put into a time loop so that's why Keith aka Mr. Conspiracy Theory himself isn't more freaked out by how he "got back" to his bed. Also, Keith's favorite adjective, when he is embarrassed, is "stupid" and I refuse to budge on that.</p>
<p>Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed it!</p>
<p>(Also idk how this works, but if anyone would be down to be a beta reader, hmu in the comments bc I have no idea what I'm doing!)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Introductory Step 2 of 2: Breaking a Few Eggs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. Too bad the eggs in this case is Keith's sanity. It works out in the end though.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sun shined, the wind whistled, and Lance and Keith were stuck in a time loop. All perfectly normal.</p><p><em>A time loop... Really?</em>  Soaked in the middle of the pool after stopping Lance from drowning, Keith now had to grapple with one of the basic fundamental parts of the universe, which was time and it’s ever-present flow, being broken.  </p><p>Keith truly thought that his perspective of what was possible and what wasn’t would have expanded after being drafted into an intergalactic war while piloting an ancient robot lion. </p><p>“I’m... in a time loop?” Keith repeated, raising one eyebrow skeptically. He didn’t think that repeating it would help it sink in, but maybe this was Lance’s most elaborate ‘gotcha’ prank.</p><p>“How did you get here? Did you follow me yesterday- last loop- whatever? Why did you follow me? Why did you go into the cave with the weird light? I mean, I guess I have no place to talk, but still!” Lance started rapid-firing questions. The blue paladin grabbed Keith’s arm and dragged him closer to the edge of the pool, but he could hardly feel it.</p><p>“The cave and the light… I’m in a time loop.” Keith said, completely spacing out from whatever the blue paladin was asking. He really shouldn’t have gone into that cave. At some point, Lance had helped him out of the pool and given him a towel to dry off. Keith was a little too dazed to know when that was though.</p><p>“Yes, yes, keep up, Keith,” Lance snapped his fingers before continuing, “I can’t believe you- who walks into the light at the end of the tunnel, you idiot?” If there was one thing that could snap Keith out of an existential crisis, it was their famous bickering.</p><p>“Wait a tick, why are you yelling at me? You apparently went ‘into the light’, too! Besides, how do I know that this isn’t just a trick?” Keith asked hotly. Lance looked highly insulted at that.</p><p>“What, like I go around planting magic caves for you to find just to trick you?? How’s this; You and Shiro were going to train today, right? I’ve pulled you aside before and he always comes looking for you. This is what he’s going to say ‘Keith. I’ve been looking for you, I thought you wanted to train today.’” Lance put on a deep voice that was apparently meant to be Shiro.</p><p>“Whatever Lance, sure, he’s going to say exactly-”</p><p>“Keith! I’ve been looking for you, I thought you wanted to train today.” </p><p>Both boys turned to Shiro in sync. <em>Well, shit</em>, Keith thought, <em>A time loop... Really</em>.</p><p>“Told you so.” Lance's smarmy face made his wise-ass comment ten times worse. If looks could kill, Lance would be dead. But alas, the universe wasn’t kind enough to give Keith smiting powers just yet.</p><p>“Wait a minute, wait a minute, why are you guys soaked?” Shiro asked, oblivious to Keith’s deadly glare at Lance. </p><p>Keith felt soggy from the water. His gear was already uncomfortable from last night. He didn’t even know if last night counted as last night. He was missing training with Shiro. This was their only real vacation time. They finally had time off to relax and now time just said <em>I hate you in particular</em>.</p><p>“I’m in a TIME LOOP with LANCE!” Keith exploded, yelling at no one in particular and everyone at once. The towel that Lance had given him went flying to god knows where when he stood up with righteous fury. Shiro looked completely taken aback by the outburst.</p><p>“Oh dude, come on! Why’d you get Shiro involved?” Lance bemoaned like a child.</p><p>“You’re... in a time loop?” Shiro asked, squinting his eyes as if waiting for a punchline. Keith stared back with all the seriousness he could muster to make sure that Shiro realized this was not actually a very elaborate prank.</p><p>“Ughhhhh, now we have to have a meeting about it and everything…” Lance dragged his hands across his face, “Thanks a lot, Keith!”. </p><hr/><p>Shiro had, in fact, called a meeting with all of the team. The whole team looked confused about why they were having a meeting earlier than usual. The distinct exception was Shiro who now replaced his confusion with concern. </p><p>“Where’s Coran?” Allura asked, looking around for her advisor. Lance looked at the clock on the wall.</p><p>“He’s in the garden right now, he didn’t hear your call.” Lance replied before fully turning to Keith “That doesn’t matter. This isn’t going to help, Keith.” </p><p>Keith shrugged in response. Why shouldn’t the team know what’s happening?  </p><p>“How did you-” Allura started.</p><p>“I’m in a time loop and so is Keith.” Lance barely explained.</p><p>“Really?” Pidge questioned, completely setting down the project she was working on in shock.</p><p>Hunk made a series of distressed noises.</p><p>“A what-?” Allura asked, obviously baffled.</p><p>“No, Nope! We aren’t starting this again! I have done this too many times to do the whole ‘what? huh? what?’ thing again.”</p><p>“What do you mean ‘too many times’, Lance?” The black paladin asked, trying to get control of the situation.</p><p>“I’ve been here longer than Keith. Doesn’t matter.”</p><p>“How long?” Shiro pushed. He was leaning forward towards Lance now.</p><p>“I don’t know, probably a couple of months?” Lance scratched the back of his head as if trying to do the mental math.</p><p>“A couple of- A couple of months???” Hunk burst out. Shiro looked stunned, clearly expecting something like a week. </p><p>“Ughhh, this always happens… I need to get somewhere on time today! Can’t we just skip ahead already?” The blue paladin pushed his hands over his eyes. </p><p>“Lance, you’ve been stuck in a time loop for a couple of months? Are you... okay?” Shiro questioned. Keith could see that Shiro was desperately trying to keep his signature worried look off his face. Lance, however, either didn’t see or didn’t care. He instead kept his focus on the red paladin.</p><p>“Keith, lightning round version of the ground rules! 1. Time restarts every day, 2. You can get injured, but it will only last the day,” Hunk sputtered out more concern about that rule, “3. No one else is in this. Well, nevermind about the last one, I need to change rule 3.” Lance counted his rules on his fingers.</p><p>A steady stream of irritation started filling Keith as Lance blatantly ignored the other paladins' obvious anxiety.</p><p>“No offense Lance, but why didn’t you come to me? I could probably figure this out.” Pidge asked, looking slightly offended. Lance looked like he was about to actually answer that, but Keith quickly followed up with a question.</p><p>“Yeah, why haven’t you figured it out yet?” Keith didn’t mean for it to come out like that. <em>You’re going to dig yourself a hole</em>, the rational section of the red paladin’s brain thought. It was probably the section that saw Shiro’s wince.</p><p>“Oh, I’m sorry, like it’s easy??” </p><p>“Maybe it would be easier if you weren’t lounging around in a pool!”</p><p>“God, this is supposed to be my de-stress time! I’m going to be late! Why are you so- ARGH?” Lance shook his hands aggressively. Lance kicked back his chair to stand up. </p><p>Shiro and Allura were trying to butt in and deescalate the situation, but Keith had already matched Lance’s anger with his own. </p><p>“That doesn’t make any sense! This. Is. A. Time. Loop! Where the hell do you need to go?” Keith ground out. </p><p>“You know what, maybe you should figure it out yourself then if it’s so easy for you, mullet-for-brains!!!”</p><p>“Maybe I will!” And there was the sealed deal.</p><p>“Alright enough! Both of you!” Shiro jumped in, demanding the end of the argument. </p><p>“Fine! You know what, I’ve gotta go, so Hasta luego, pals! Oh and Keith, when you are done being a little quiznaking prissy-pants McGee, maybe we can actually start doing shit. But whatever, we’ve got all the time in the world, right?” Lance bit out sardonically before stomping out of the room.</p><p>“I don’t even know what that insult means!” Keith shouted back despite knowing Lance was likely not listening. He was still shaking with adrenaline from the shouting match, not even realizing that he had stood up at one point, too. </p><p>He crossed his arms tightly in anger. <em>Who does Lance think he is?</em>, He internally hissed. He’d solve this stupid loop and he’d do it alone. Or with Pidge and Hunk’s help. Whatever.</p><p>“Keith, maybe you should consider just working with Lance-” He stopped Shiro and his advice.</p><p>“No! I’m going to fix this time loop! I’ve dug this hole and now I’m going to lie in it.” </p><p>“That’s really not the phrase.” He could just barely hear Shiro sigh.</p><p>For Keith, the meeting was clearly over despite everyone else still being baffled by the whole situation. He stormed out of the room before anyone could stop him.</p><hr/><p>The first day was easy enough. It had already been established that he was in a time loop so there was no need to convenience Pidge or Hunk. The yellow paladin was a little harder to work with, evidently worrying about Lance and his reaction. Hunk asked a ton of questions about what Keith knew and if he knew what Lance knew, but Keith vehemently denied knowing anything about what Hunk’s best friend was doing. </p><p>Lance didn’t show up at all. Wherever his ‘meeting’ was, it was crystal-clear that he wasn’t coming back to the penthouse. Most of the day was instead going over whatever hypotheses the science duo could think up.</p><p>This wasn’t exactly their area of expertise, though, which made it a lot harder. Hunk specialized mostly in the physical realm of physics like kinematics, so most of what he could think of revolved around possible machinery that could have caused this. Pidge, on the other hand, was far more into computers and software. Her theories based themselves on ideas of simulations and at one point, ‘if this reality was a program, it could be like an infinite while loop with no break to end it’.</p><p>If Pidge and Hunk were a little out of their depth with the purely theoretical, Keith would be completely out of there. He could keep up for some of it. He had enough baseline knowledge of a lot of different STEM fields from the Garrison’s rigorous classes to do so, but the intricacies of different discussions flew over his head. One of the two science paladins often had to give him a rundown of what to remember for the next day.</p><p>By the end of the first day, Pidge gave Keith a secret password (“Ned Ryerson! Bing!” “What??” “You really haven’t seen Groundhog Day???”) which she apparently came up with after Matt and her watched some movie. That would mean that he could get a head start on the day. Keith could definitely do this.</p><p>The next loop came soon enough. He hopped out of bed and completely ignored Lance, who was ignoring him, while walking to the workroom the penthouse came with. He hadn’t realized that Pidge and Hunk were apparently taking the day off as an actual day off, so that meant waiting nearly an hour to start working. Shiro came looking for him, but Keith shrugged him off quickly.</p><p>Once they finally got to work after having Pidge’s stupid password and dealing with Hunk’s worry all over again, it had been nearly half the day. The duo would rattle off ideas, which Keith would say that they’d already been down, and then they'd started giving certain equations to him to make sure that their work could be followed by ‘an alternate version of themselves’ (quoting Pidge). This was definitely going to be easy, he just needed a few days and then he could solve this thing.</p><hr/><p>It’d only been three days. Keith could do this. He’d remembered all of the formulas Pidge and Hunk asked him to and the secret password to make sure that they believed him about the time loop.</p><p>“Want a drink?” Lance smugly asked, evidently not ignoring him anymore. He waved his weird coconut drink around.</p><p>“What? No, I’ve got to talk to Pidge and Hunk.” Keith brushed him off hotly.</p><p>Lance shrugged and spun around.</p><hr/><p>It’d only been four days. Keith could do this. Pidge yelled at him last time for giving her ‘junk equations’ after she figured out that her old (or the old Pidge’s, he supposed) hypothesis wasn’t going to work.</p><p>“Want a drink?” Lance asked, with the exact tone as yesterday… or today… time was confusing.</p><p>“No,” Keith grunted out.</p><p>“M’kay.”</p><hr/><p>It’d only been a week. Keith could do this. He was trying to recite all the numbers and work Pidge had started doing in his head to keep them in order. He also had to remember the other three sets of long equations they had used for the other two hypotheses she and Hunk thought up.</p><p>“Want a drink?” Lance asked like he did every loop.</p><p>“No, you want to stop being useless?” Keith felt his frustration rise.</p><p>“Meh, no thanks,” Lance snarked “Try Coran if you want, he’s heard of a lot of stuff.” Maybe Keith should have thought about that earlier.</p><hr/><p>It’d only been a week and a day. Keith could do this. He had resorted to saying every one of the equations out loud and trying to write everything on his arms as quickly as possible in the morning.</p><p>“Want a drink?” Lance asked. It felt like the millionth time.</p><p>“No, Coran didn’t even know what a time loop was! Shiro had to come in and then I had to explain to both of them that I was stuck in whatever this is! Again! Where were you??” Keith accused angrily, throwing his hands up in frustration.</p><p>“Hehe, yeah, Alteans actually don’t know what time loops are. Guess they don’t have Groundhog Day. Sad.” Lance ignored his question. Keith hates Lance sometimes.</p><hr/><p>It’d been a week and four days. Keith could do this. <em>Did Pidge write ‘352,034’ or ‘352.034’? Or did Hunk write that?</em> He was starting to lose track of the more intricate numbers.</p><p>“You sure you don’t want a drink?” Lance asked, pushing his stupid sunglasses down.</p><p>Keith actually growled at him.</p><p>Lance smiled innocently and took a sip of his drink.</p><hr/><p>It’d been two weeks and two days. Keith could do this. <em>Something about quintessence and black holes? F = (G*M*m)/d^2… and wherever time fit into that</em>, Keith was desperately trying to keep the two science paladins' many hypotheses straight.</p><p>“Want a drink?” Stupid Lance asked, stupidly.</p><p>“Shut up!” Keith shouted. He walked as quickly as he could pass the pool.</p><p>“Alrighty then!”</p><hr/><p>It had been two weeks and four days. Keith… could do this… </p><p>“Want a-”</p><p>“Shut! Up! JUST SHUT UP! ARGH!” Keith felt like pulling out his hair as Lance put his hands up in surrender. He could DO this! He just needed to remember what to tell Pidge. Like he did every day.</p><p>“I just wanted to know if you wanted a drink, jeez.” The boy on the STUPID pool float said.</p><p>Lance looked at Keith and Keith looked at Lance. </p><p>“So… Want a drink?” Lance, being the idiot he was, gave a shit-eating grin.</p><p>Keith roared, full of deep primal rage, and charged at the water. The blue paladin screamed and scrambled off the float to avoid Keith’s incoming tackle.</p><p>“Shiro! ShirOOOOOOOOO!” Lance tried to run through the water and yell for help as a very feral Keith doggy paddled towards him like a shark. His pleas couldn’t help him. Keith had planned to dunk his head underwater, and by god, he was going to do it.</p><p>“Lance?” Shiro yelled back as he ran to his fellow teammate’s screams of distress. By that time, Shiro got there, Keith was climbing on to Lance to try and push the taller boy under the water.</p><p>“What the-! NO! BAD KEITH! GET OFF HIM NOW!” Shiro shouted from the side of the pool. </p><p>Keith was given a very stern lecture about attempting to murder teammates and was subsequently grounded the rest of that loop.</p><hr/><p>It had been two weeks and six days. Keith had to do this.</p><p>Lance just waved as Keith stormed by as he had ever since the pool incident.</p><hr/><p>It had been around three weeks of no real progress. Keith couldn’t do this. </p><p>Despite what he often tried outwardly portrayed, he wasn’t a fighting robot that could just keep pushing. The same conversations, the same interactions. By now he could practically repeat the first few questions Pidge and Hunk asked. He tried so hard to remember everything that Pidge had told him to remember for the next loop, but at some point, it got so jumbled that even the combined power of Pidge and Hunk’s genius couldn’t really help.</p><p>Keith walked into the in-between area where the infinity pool was very defeatedly. Lance only looked up briefly from his resting position on the cherry pool float. The sharpshooter stuck out his hand with a gift for his fellow paladin, a single pair of blue flame-shaped sunglasses. </p><p>“The Monday squiggle floaty is over there if you want.” Lance pointed next to one of the lounge chairs.</p><p>“Why Monday?” Keith asked, picking it up as he walked to the poolside.</p><p>“Cause it’s my least favorite.” Lance replied matter-of-factly, “I use different floats for the days of the week. Helps me keep track of time… Somewhat.” </p><p>“Where are you even getting all this stuff?” Lance seemed to always have an assortment of Earth-like items, now including the sunglasses Keith was holding.</p><p>“Well, the floaties are actually part of the penthouse, but the rest of the stuff is all 3D printing. This planet’s really advanced with tech and I took an elective with Hunk at the garrison about CAD and printing so… yeah. It can even print food and stuff so that’s nice.”</p><p>“You… 3D print sunglasses and a straw every day? Isn’t that, like, a lot?” Not to mention that both of Lance’s designs were red and heart-shaped.</p><p>“What part about this-” Lance gestures to himself, “-doesn’t scream extra to you?”</p><p><em>Fair point</em>, Keith shrugged in response. The pool splashed a little as Keith got on the floaty.</p><p>“How’d you even know I was coming?” Keith didn’t think he’d seen the blue sunglasses Lance gave him before. He didn’t exactly understand all the rules to the time loop, but he didn’t think it gave Lance the power to see the future. </p><p>“We’re two cuts from the same cloth, that is, if one part of the cloth had a better fashion sense than the other.” Keith scoffed at that. “At first I let you keep going cause I was angry at you, but then I let you keep going cause you were gonna do what I did. We work well together, but we don’t usually actually work together unless we’ve got to. Like the bomb or when we’re in battle or when the elevator breaks.”</p><p>Keith soured a bit at that. He wished they could just work without all those things, but Lance was right. Lance, oblivious to Keith’s mood, spun a little bit in his floaty and basked in the warm sunlight.</p><p>“Anyways, it took me around two weeks or so to stop working 24/7 and chillax in the mornings, so I thought it’d be similar for you.” He continued. “Congrats on lasting a little longer!”</p><p>A silence settled over the pool after the blue paladin's explanation. For the first time, Keith truly felt the toll that the time loop was taking on him. He felt exhausted beyond what any training exercise could do. Before he could truly spiral, Lance spoke up again.</p><p>“So when did it hit you? That you had to come to my brilliant self for answers?” Lance quipped, tilting his head towards Keith and smiling.</p><p>“When I realized Pidge and Hunk can't solve time loops in a day. I couldn’t memorize enough of their work to actually get anywhere.”</p><p>“Ah, yeah. I remember finding that out the hard way.” Keith looked at him questioningly at that.</p><p>“The little gremlin got so frustrated with one of my explanations that she actually bit me.” Lance supplied and grinned wildly, as if weirdly proud of her biting him. Keith barked out a shocked-but-not-really laugh at that. </p><p>“Good for Pidge.”</p><p>“Classic sibling behavior, ya know?”</p><p>“Er… no,” Keith said. Lance faltered for a second before bouncing back.</p><p>“Shiro’s never done something that makes you think ‘god, you’re the worst’, but really you still care about him a lot?” </p><p>“I guess, yeah.” Keith bit the inside of his cheeks to will the smile that threatened to invade his face away. He always thought of Shiro as somewhat of a brother, but knowing that Lance (<em>perceptive, charismatic, actually-good-at-social-situations Lance</em>) saw it too filled Keith with warm happiness. </p><p><em>Speaking of Pidge though</em>, Keith's train of thought began.</p><p>“What if we brought her into the loop? Pidge, I mean. Or Hunk. Or both of them?” Lance’s smile twisted downward. Keith felt his heart sink at the response.</p><p>“I’ve thought about it, but…” Lance shook his head.</p><p>“But?” Keith provoked, spinning his pool float to better face Lance. </p><p>“I don’t want anyone else to be stuck here.” The red paladin felt a sting of hurt at that. Lance had evidently seen it. </p><p>“Keith, we don’t know what this is. This isn’t exactly some movie logic where just being a better person is going to fix everything. What I’m trying to say is, there might just… not be a way out? Not without drastic measures or… well, maybe not at all.” His voice hitched up a notch at the last part. </p><p>He could tell that Lance was now looking at him to judge his reaction, but he couldn’t keep a straight face with the idea of eternally being trapped in one day being presented to him. Keith definitely wished they weren’t having this discussion about their possibly endless future stuck in limbo on pool floats. </p><p>“Maybe there is, though?” Lance swiftly course-corrected, “I’ve been working on learning more about quintessence and theoretical quantum physics from some of the city’s best professors and researchers. The only problem is keeping track of everything, maybe you could help with that?”</p><p>“You’re learning quantum physics?” Keith challenged.</p><p>“Excuse me? I heard that tone! Rude!” Lance furrowed his eyebrows and crossed his arms. Keith winced as he realized how his question came out.</p><p>“I just mean that I couldn’t do it! I hate physics!” Which, to be fair, was completely true. “It’s all theory and no action.” </p><p>Lance side-eyed him for a bit before huffing out a small laugh. <em>Yes</em>, Keith congratulated himself on successfully diverting an incoming fight.</p><p>“That was such a Keith thing to say that I can’t even be mad at you. You do know that you have to be my lab assistant though, right?” Lance cheekily asked. Keith grumbled but accepted the figurative olive branch graciously. </p><p>“You need to keep track of the hours, by the way! That’s your first task. The best physics professor in the city apparently doesn’t take days off even for planet-wide celebrations, which is bonkers, but! He does have time at exactly 1 for lunch and that’s when I- or we’ll ambush him.” Lance pointed a finger directly into Keith’s face as if that was going to make him remember better.</p><p><em>So that’s where Lance was going all day</em>. “Fair enough. I’ll take my job very seriously.” Keith tried to say as dryly as possible.</p><p>“Ah, when I say jump, you say how high.” Well, now Lance was getting a little bit too cocky with his new head researcher position.</p><p>“If you say jump, I’m bringing out my bayard,” Keith smirked.</p><p>“Threats of bodily harm are no way to get a raise, my dear assistant.” Lance sputtered theatrically, smiling back at him.  Keith didn’t know if it was the hot noon sun or the blush that came with Lance saying that Keith was his dear (ignore the assistant) that was currently heating up his face. He was going to say the sun.</p><p>Guess he was going to have to learn some physics. A lull in the conversation came over them, but the silence was more comfortable than anything. Lance had pushed up his sunglasses to rest in his hair and let his head rest on his floaty. It was… serene to just relax in the pool. The sun was bright and harsh, but the water lessened the blow. In the new quietness, he could just barely hear the sounds of excited crowds of people on the streets through the penthouse glass. </p><p>The serenity would have to wait though, he had more questions to ask. “By the way, how did you know that I was in the time loop the first day?”</p><p>The blue paladin matched the red paladin’s more sobered mood. Keith could practically see the gears turning in his head as Lance tried to properly word whatever he was going to say.</p><p>“You said something different. Like every day- or every loop, I guess, everyone says the same things over and over. Like they’re running off a script or something. But the first day, you said something different and it felt like the world shifted a bit...” Lance drifted from his words for a second before trying to switch gears. </p><p>“Besides, if I was wrong, it wouldn’t really matter, would it? No one would remember.” Lance joked, but it was filled with something that left a bitter taste in the red paladin's mouth. </p><p>Even to someone as socially unsavvy as Keith, it was noticeable from that statement alone that all this stuff was having a very negative effect on the natural out-going paladin. It was hard enough after three weeks and Keith wasn’t even nearly as extroverted. Lance had been here for months.</p><p>What worried Keith most, though, was that the blue paladin didn’t look sad, or angry, or any of the other exaggerated emotions that Lance usually gave off. It was… well, closer to apathetic.</p><p>Keith often swayed far closer to anger than indifference, but he knew that apathy was a nasty beast to fight. It'd sink its claws in and drag a person under so slowly that they wouldn’t even notice they were going under. There were several kids he'd meet at different foster homes that had that look. Eventually, they would sit down and then wouldn't get back up, not really at least. </p><p>Keith knew he had to do something. Anything to pull Lance back up. Something spontaneous would probably do the trick and if there was one thing that the red paladin was known for, it was making split-second decisions.</p><p>“Let’s do something?” Keith blurted out. <em>Oh god, that sounds stupid</em>, Keith scowled internally. He had no idea how to ask someone if they wanted to hang out, but he hoped that was good enough. </p><p>“That’s what... friends do, right?” Keith tacked on tentatively just in case.</p><p>Lance gave him an unreadable look and Keith felt like he definitely messed up. Maybe it was too presumptuous to say they were friends? They argue, like a lot, but they’re still friends, right? Well, at least teammates. Maybe even ‘rivals’ if Lance was still on that kick-</p><p>Breaking through his panic, though, Keith saw Lance smile. It wasn’t cocky or smug or arrogant or teasing. Just a smile. All for him. </p><p>“Yeah, alright. Let’s do something.” Lance decided.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>You know, I'm in a time loop, You're in a time loop, He's she's they're we're in a time loop, Time looping, Time loopology, The study of time loops? It's first grade SpongeBob!</p><p>How many times do I have to write that line before these fellas get it??</p><p>I really should not have started writing this story at the same time as my finals, but uhhhh... I'm dumb and my mind works like a pinball machine so. I hope the formatting isn't too jarring of a difference? I have no idea how to do it properly.</p><p>Anyway, hope you enjoyed the excessive amount of ellipses and my bad attempts at humor. The scene of Shiro treating Keith like a cat (BAD KEITH!) has lived in my mind rent-free since I started watching this show so I legally had to add it. If Lance seems a little OOC, he'll grow out of it, hopefully, idk, most likely.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Step 1: The Start</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Season's greetings, friends! Is it too late to say that? Sorry, this chapter took so long... Hopefully, you enjoy it! It's the last set-up chapter. Also, there is probably somewhat excessive world-building, I just really love exploring alien cultures and stuff.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Keith had asked Lance to do something, he expected training or maybe watching a movie. Lance, however, was never one to do anything by halves.</p><p>The first thing Keith noticed about the streets of the city was that they were absolutely packed with people. In the morning, Lance had said, it was a complete free-for-all in terms of where everyone can go. It wasn’t until later that streets were sectioned off so that driving was accessible. For now, it was a little bit too hot, a little bit too sweaty, and a whole lot a bit too crowded. All that, however, was drowned out by the waves of pure excitement that filled the area. Hundreds of thousands of Aeoazians flooded the city streets due to the retreat of the Galra and the subsequent victory of the solar system. Lance held Keith's hand through the crowd as they wormed their way through it (Keith was definitely not blushing at their intertwined hands, that would be embarrassing and stupid).</p><p>The second thing Keith realized was how near deafeningly loud it was. It seemed like every person in the whole city was dancing and chanting and singing in a mass celebration that took over all the main roads. Over the noise of the crowds, as if just to make sure that no silence was allowed, loud chimes overlapped each other and echoed through the street like an alien version of church bells. When Lance tried to point things out to Keith, he had to shout to be heard despite how close they were (it totally wasn't heart-melting to feel Lance pulling him mere inches away).</p><p>The third thing Keith noticed was something falling out of the sky and landing in his hair gently. When Keith looked up, he saw millions of vibrant flower-like petals fluttering in the air and falling onto the street (or more accurately, the heads of the people on the street) from the apartments high above. Drones fill the spots in between the petals and projected a hologram of a massive snake creature that flowed like a river around the corner. Keith and Lance almost got knocked over by the gaggle of kids trying to follow its path.</p><p>Lance reached out with his free hand to catch one of the petals as it fell and gave it to Keith. “Isn’t it amazing?” He asked, yelling to be heard.  </p><p>Despite everything (the loud noises, the jam-packed crowds, the odd things falling on his head), Keith couldn’t help but agree. Would he want to be here for a long time? No, definitely not. But for the time being, it was undeniably… well, beautiful was the only word that came to Keith’s mind, but he’s sure someone could say it with more flowery language.</p><p>Team Voltron didn’t often get to see this side of their victories. Quick glimpses of cheering warriors, sure, but they were often ushered behind closed palace doors for banquets or parties or whatever else the leaders wanted to call it. Every conversation there had an underlying meaning, every ounce of small talk was a tightrope between a future ally and a possible enemy.</p><p>The political doublespeak couldn't be compared to the unbridled joy that was radiating through the streets. When complete strangers talked or danced or sang together here, it wasn’t filled with rules and customs. It was solely because someone had finally answered their prayers of peace and freedom from the Galran Empire's tyranny.</p><p>“Reminds me of those old photos from post-world war 2. You know, like the kissing one.” Lance's comment was barely audible over the crowd. He tugged on Keith’s hand to make sure he was keeping up. Keith wished he could squash the invasive butterflies in his stomach.</p><p>“The closest thing I can think of is when the Cowboys won the Superbowl and my dad took me to the city to celebrate,” Keith replied, a sting of the old loss coming through the awe he felt at the city’s festivities. <em>Whoever said time heals all wounds is a liar</em>, Keith bitterly thought. Lance, ever perceptive of emotions, looked back quickly and squeezed his hand gently.</p><p>“Wait, who are the Cowboy?” Lance tilted his head backward to look at Keith with udder confusion. Keith gratefully took the slightly new topic of conversation.</p><p>“Dallas Cowboys. They're a football team.”</p><p>Lance made a face and stuck out his tongue. “Ah, <em>American Football</em>.” He said like it was a sin.</p><p>“Yeah, the real football,” Keith smirked and raised an eyebrow. He didn’t have to see Lance’s face to know that he was outraged by the comment. Lance pulled Keith outside of the passing crowd into a less densely packed alleyway. </p><p>“Um, how DARE you? What kind of person thinks that American Football is ‘the real football’!” Lance pulled his hand away from Keith’s as the crowd lessened. He felt himself miss the warmth of Lance’s hand as soon as it was gone.<em> Shut up, me</em>, Keith internally hissed at whatever gross lovey-dovey part of his mind came up with that thought.</p><p>The blue paladin stopped his inevitable rant on Keith’s ‘bad taste’ midway through though. “Wait, oh my gosh, did you say Dallas? Like Texas?”</p><p>Keith flushed and nodded hesitantly. He hadn’t meant to bring it up.</p><p>“You’re from Texas!? Holy crow, are you hiding your accent? You have to be! Everyone loves a good ol’ Texas accent!” Lance burst out with excitement. That was… unexpected. Usually, people brought up him being from Texas in a negative manner.</p><p>“I did have one. When I was younger at least. But getting tossed around different houses and kids being mean kind of... got rid of it.” Keith explained awkwardly.</p><p>“Those kids are stupid goblins!” Lance declared with a fiery passion. Keith couldn't help the startled laugh that came out from the odd comparison.</p><p>“Man, you could’ve been a space cowboy! I used to try and say everything with a texas accent cause I used to think that space cowboy was an actual profession. My family was soooooo over it. My mamá made me stop though. I said ‘busier than a one-legged man at an ass-kickin’ convention’ and she almost washed out my mouth with soap for swearing.”</p><p>Laughter erupted out of Keith faster than a hot knife through butter. The accent was absolutely terrible, Lance had over-pronounced every syllable. Keith could completely see why Lance’s family hated it. </p><p>“That- That was the worst impression I’ve ever heard.” Keith got out once he finally caught his breath. Despite the harsh review, Lance beamed at him like the sun itself.</p><p>“If only I could have been a space cowboy with my beautiful, completely accurate accent. Guess I just have to settle with being a pilot.” Lance mockingly sighed, grin not dropping for a second. </p><p>“You’re literally a paladin of Voltron, defender of the universe.” </p><p>“But space cowboy…” The blue paladin pouted.</p><p>Before Keith could continue, Lance grabbed his hand again and they walked into another street packed with people. This road had a big outdoor market that blocked just the bare minimum amount of foot traffic between stalls.</p><p>Lance had evidently gotten some GAC from somewhere (probably Coran) and pulled Keith around from stall to stall. With the arrival of Voltron, many of the more adventurous planetary traders had come to sell their goods. Some of the different stalls sold things from places lightyears away from Aeoaza and its solar system. The shopkeepers themselves were a hodgepodge of different species, but that wasn’t too far out of line with what Keith had seen around the city. He supposed it would make sense since the planet was known as a tourist hot spot.</p><p>Keith had asked why they were going to a market in the first place if they literally couldn’t keep this stuff for more than the loop. Lance had just replied, and Keith quotes, ‘treat yo self’. According to the blue paladin, that meant buy whatever you want with no guilt because it didn't matter anyway.</p><p>“Oh! Oh! Keith, look at this!” Lance bounced around the current pop-up shop. Keith followed him but didn’t look up from the display rack he was circling. The blue paladin had been fluttering around from item to item like a kid on a sugar high, constantly adding to his ever-growing bag of goods.</p><p>“You really haven’t been here before?” Keith asked. <em>Ah, real red string!</em> he gleefully thought as he picked up a spool of the stuff. Shiro couldn’t take it away if it was literally going to disappear by the end of the day.</p><p>“There’s, like, a bajillion stalls here. I could be stuck here for forever and still not find everything.” Lance flippantly responded. Keith wondered if he could ask Lance to hide his conspiracy board (which was very normal and not at all weird, thank you very much, Shiro) in Lance’s room so the black paladin couldn’t find it. What stage of friendship does one have to reach before they can ask that?</p><p>Lance came over with his bag of goods, which was dangerously close to spilling, and pulled a very strong ‘I’m-judging-you’ face. "It's actually illegal for you to only get that." Lance pointed at the single spool of string Keith had.</p><p>"Actually?" Keith questioned despite being at least 75% sure Lance was joking. To be fair, a lot of planets have very weird sets of rules.</p><p>"In my heart, yes. In the eyes of the law, no, but I'll work on it."</p><p>Keith looked around the store and then back to Lance. "There's nothing else I want." Lance looked supremely unimpressed by that.</p><p>"I guess shopping might not really be your thing..." Lance contemplated. He plucked the spool of red string Keith was holding and then his face changed like a light bulb just went off in his head. “Follow me, mullet.”</p><p>Keith was highly suspicious of the smirk that refused to drop from Lance’s face as he pulled them through the busy marketplace. </p><p>When Lance finally stopped, he pushed Keith into a tent. Just barely regaining his balance, he turned to glare at Lance before recognizing what this shop was selling. Wall to wall, the place was filled with weaponry of various sizes. Oddly enough, in between the knives and swords, were a variety of sweet-smelling flowers. It made what would have been a scary shop actually quite nice. Lance walked in like he owned the place shortly afterwards. </p><p>“You know I don’t just like knives, right?” He did like knives, but he already had his favorite knife and his bayard so he didn’t actually need more. They were very well made though…</p><p>“That’s not all we’re here for~” Lance spoke with a singsong voice. The red paladin was going to question him but was quickly cut off.</p><p>“Hey, Ya-Ya! I’ve got someone who wants to meet you!” Lance called out into the store. He bounced lightly on his heels and kept looking at Keith as if he was just waiting for his reaction.</p><p>“Huh? Give me a tic. I’ll be right out!” A high-pitched, garbled voice came from behind a back current. The figure moved forward from the storage area. They were massive in stature, towering over both paladins, and covered in pitch-black fuzz. Their red eyes were immensely intimidating, but the absurdity of the creepy alien in comparison to the cozy pop-up shop and nice words lessened the fear.    </p><p>“Hm… Do I know you, traveler? Do you need anything?” They kindly questioned.</p><p>The red paladin of Voltron couldn’t answer the question though, not without addressing the massive elephant in the room first. “<em>MOTHMAN?</em>” </p>
<hr/><p>Keith only had a small bag of stuff by the end of the trip, nothing even comparable to the massive bag of things Lance was holding. Still, it had been more than worth it. He could still hear Lance’s full body laughter at his reaction to the shopkeeper, but he couldn’t bring himself to be embarrassed over all the curiosity he felt. Apparently, Ya-Ya, as Lance called them, was a trader from the Lavender Nectar solar system (neither Lance nor Keith knew if that was the common Galactic term for that solar system or just a local term). Whatever it would have been called on the castle star-charts, Lance said it was relatively close to Earth.</p><p>That’s how Keith spent the entirety of their walk back to the penthouse teaching -or more accurately, monologuing- about Mothman and how this proved that he existed. The shopkeeper was so close to the descriptions of the folklore of Mothman that it couldn’t be a coincidence. He always knew the government was hiding things, just wait till he gets back to Earth to tell the conspiracy theory forums.</p><p>Keith eventually realized he was completely taking over the conversation with his in-depth analysis of the likelihood that Ya-ya (or more accurately someone from his planet) was Mothman. "Er… Sorry for just going off. I really want to rub this in Shiro’s face.”</p><p>“No, no, I just don’t think I’ve ever heard you that excited about something.” Lance smiled softly. He pulled Keith’s hand a little bit to steer him around the people in front of their building.</p><p>"Is that why you were staring?” </p><p>Lance’s face suddenly went red. “No! I just- I’m getting a heat stroke! Yeah! And I’m spacing out because of it!”</p><p>“Heatstroke?” Keith questioned. It seemed to fluster Lance more as he sped up to the doors of the living quarters.</p><p>“Or… or maybe Ya-Ya hypnotized me. Like Mothmen do, you know?” Lance let go of Keith’s hand and stuck out his bag-free arm like an old movie vampire. “He’s taking my brain energy!” Lance said in a Transylvanian accent. </p><p>“Damn. Guess he must be starving now, huh?” At first, Keith thought he overstepped his boundaries with the comment, but Lance seemed to play with it. </p><p>“Oh, now you’ve got jokes! I’ll have you know that he would be having a four-course meal with my galaxy brain!” Lance walked through the spinning doors of their building.</p><p>The lobby was empty, but they were still close together. If anything, the lack of other people only accentuated how close they were standing to each other. Some part of Keith really liked it, but another part of him wanted to beat up the first part for making him feel embarrassed as they waited for the elevator. </p><p>Luckily, it came to the ground floor fast enough and they shuffled in. Lance set his large amount of stuff on the ground and leaned against the back part of the elevator as it started to move.</p><p>“Hey, have you been to the banquet yet?” Lance asked. He continued at Keith’s confused face. “You know, the one they are hosting for us saving the planet?”</p><p>“Oh, yeah, that one.” Honestly, it’d been so long he’d kind of forgotten about it. “And no, I- well, I was working with Pidge and Hunk and I don’t really like-”</p><p>“No, no, I’m not shaming you or anything! I only went once during my first month or so. We should go!” It was phrased as a statement, but the question was clear.</p><p>“It’s not really my thing.” Keith tried to worm his way out of what he was expecting Lance to say.</p><p>“Yeah, but they’re going to play the golden record from the voyager!” Lance bargained. </p><p>“Wait, what? How do they have that?” Many, many years before Keith had even been born, Earth lost all contact with Voyager 1. It was assumed it was hit with a rock or something but, apparently, it got lost to aliens. How many aliens were set up around their solar system?</p><p>“Yeah! It got caught by some space pirates -which, awesome, I have to say- and they sold the thing, stuff happened, blah blah, and it eventually got here! They know we’re humans so they want to play it for us. The intro is boring and some of it is creepy static, but I happen to know exactly where <em>El Cascabel</em> and <em>Johnny B. Goode</em> play back-to-back. So party!” Lance said pridefully.</p><p>The red paladin had to admit that it would be cool to see that. He agreed to Lance’s proposal with a clause that if the banquet sucked, they never had to go to it again unless it was absolutely necessary.</p><p>They fell into another silence after the agreement until Keith realized something half-way up the ride to their floor. "Um, by the way, we definitely missed that meeting thing with the professor you wanted to go to." </p><p>Keith looked at Lance and Lance looked at Keith. Lance then raised an unimpressed eyebrow.</p><p>"You literally had one job. You’re the worst lab assistant ever and I'm docking your pay."</p><p>"What- you don't even pay me!"</p><p>"Untrue! I pay you with my beautiful company~" Lance sang and twirled into a pose. Keith would've been more dazzled if Lance hadn't nearly tripped over the bag he’d set down.</p><p>Keith sniffed and forced himself to keep a straight face. "The pay here is terrible."</p><p>Lance looked highly scandalized. The elevator door dinged as it opened, which is apparently a universal trait of elevators no matter the planet. </p><p>"You’re one cold-hearted cowboy, Keith Kogane." Lance shook his head and grabbed his bag. He then waltzed out of the elevator like the theater kid he was. Lance saying his full name stunned him for a second and was far, far too pleasing. He hated how much he liked it. “Now go get ready, the rest of the team probably already left for the banquet.”</p>
<hr/><p>Allura had pulled them aside as soon as Lance brought Keith to where the team was meant to meet up. To say she was unhappy was a severe understatement. Luckily, Lance was able to convince her that the best time to reprimand them was tomorrow rather than during the party. After Keith realized what Lance was doing, Keith readily agreed that tomorrow was better. Allura, although still very peeved, relented. </p><p>The paladins were mostly silent at the banquet. The very special, completely-rude-if-they-don’t-do-it greeting which they had to do with the President was, no joke, double finger guns just around the President. Apparently, it was something along the lines of ‘symbolizing that they would protect the leader’s back’ or something. Lance was ecstatic as the rest of the team begrudgingly finger-gunned (Keith didn’t even know if that was a word). He whispered to Keith afterward that if there was one thing that never got old, it was Shiro’s face when he had to do double finger guns at a highly important diplomatic meeting. </p><p>Beyond that though, the President told her speech and congratulated the Paladins and her own world’s heroes. It wasn’t much different from the usual ceremonies they went to, in all honesty. The party split up into small subgroups that mingled amongst each other. Lance said that Allura had all but demanded that he go with Coran for just a bit to smooch up to some potential allies or she would get even madder and drag him out by the ear. The conviction with which Lance spoke made him pretty sure that that scenario had already happened on some other loop. Lance also said that he was going to try and tell the wildest story he could before Coran could stop him so if he goes missing, it was probably because Allura murdered him.</p><p>Shiro had pulled Keith aside at some point to talk about him missing training and not telling him where he went. He knew Shiro wasn’t being completely serious based on the fact that he was wearing his infamous guilt-trip-inducing look, but Keith just gave a shrug as an answer.</p><p>“You also missed the meeting today.” Shiro said with a little more ‘black paladin leadership’ in his voice. </p><p>“I know, I was just, um, busy. I’m sorry.” Keith felt bad about having to make Shiro act like a firm leader around him. The black paladin assessed his teammate for a moment before nodding.</p><p>“It’s alright just this once,” Shiro relented, Keith did have a good track record after all. “You must have gotten the gist of what Allura was going to say to us.” Keith breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn’t going to receive a space dad lecture™. </p><p>Shiro coughed to bring back the red paladin’s attention. “Lance also missed the meeting. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” Shiro questioned with an innocent smile.</p><p>“No.” Keith furrowed his eyebrow. The red paladin felt himself instantly get more defensive and embarrassed. “Shut up.” He mustered up the best death glare he could.</p><p>“Hoh hoh hoh, the date went well then, huh?” Shiro’s face lit up mischievously as Keith all but confirmed his suspicions. </p><p>“It wasn’t a date!!! Nothing happened! Go away. Leave me alone.” Keith felt his face turn the color of his lion as he strongly avoided Shiro’s excited gaze.</p><p>“Alright, fine, I think Allura does need some help. Just let me know next time you go on a date with Lance~” Shiro said in a sing-song voice. He walked away snickering before Keith could yell at him.</p><p>So now Shiro and Allura were caught up in peace talks with various leaders and diplomats. Pidge and Hunk were currently speaking with the engineers who had been working on the Castle during the day. Lance and Coran were entertaining a variety of different guests. Lance was clearly in control of the conversation. He waved his hands around animatedly so that even from a distance, anyone could tell he was mid-story.</p><p>And Keith, as he usually did when the other paladins were busy, went to go stand relatively isolated in a corner somewhere. He leaned against the wall to look out at the crowd. The party made him feel like he was back in school, looking at the clock like it would make the class go by faster.</p><p>Compared to the much more packed streets that they had been to today, the small gathering hosted by the President was weirdly more uncomfortable. Deep down, Keith knew why though. Here, he was The Red Paladin of Voltron. Here, he was a highly important figure that constantly had eyes on him. He really didn’t like these banquets.</p><p>“Red paladin!” One of the Lizard-like Aeoazian’s introduced themselves, “Hello, I am Hon O’L’fba.” Hon’s forked tongue flickered out at the end of the sentence. </p><p>She was somewhat short compared to him but was well-built enough to look like she could handle her own. Her dark orange scale color was almost hard to see due to the fact that she was absolutely drenched in jewelry and silver headwear. There was enough to know that she was someone of importance in their culture if it was anything similar to most of the alien cultures they’ve experienced. Keith shifted upwards off the wall into a more communicative stance. <em>Where have I heard that name before?</em> Keith tried to recall quickly. Lance had said something about it...</p><p>“You can call me Keith. You’re… the president’s daughter, right?” Keith finally remembered from the first day before the whole looping thing.</p><p>“Ah, yes! How did you know?” She tilted her head and (what Keith interrupted as) happily hissed.</p><p>“The Blue Paladin, Lance.” Keith pointed to the man who was currently miming out throwing a spear at something and then… being shot dramatically? It was hard to tell. Many of the guests around him had expressions mixing from awe to disgust. Lance somehow noticed Keith looking and broke the charade to wave at the red paladin before continuing with his conversation again.</p><p>“Hmm, I don’t think that I have met him?” Oh, right, time loop.</p><p>“Oh, uh, it must have been in one of our meetings then.” Keith recovered swiftly. She accepted the answer thankfully. They talked for a little while about the last battle. She had apparently been one of the fighter pilots that helped them against Zarkon’s forces. The conversation was actually really interesting. She asked a lot about different piloting techniques he used and while a lot of them weren’t fully translatable to regular ships, she still seemed very invested in his answers.</p><p>“Ey! Come over, meet one of our saviors, the red paladin!” Hon yelled out to someone outside of Keith’s view at one point during their talk. He looked to where she was looking and was shocked by who he saw.</p><p><em>Huh, Ey was a robot?</em> He tried to mask his surprise. Keith remembered a long time ago (technically it was only a week ago, but if the time loop was included, it had been a month) Allura explaining some of the reasons the Galra had attacked Aeoaza and the surrounding system in the first place. </p><p>One such reason was that Aeoaza was highly advanced in it’s A.I. technology, despite being more well known as a tourist destination. Coran has said something about an internal struggle many generations ago around gaining sentient status for the A.I. on the planet, but he included a ton of tangential stories that only Lance seemed able to follow completely. </p><p>He’d seen a decent amount of robots on the street earlier, but he didn’t think much of it until now really. There were plenty of robots in space, but surprising little sentient ones that had their own personalities.</p><p>He snapped back to the conversation, realizing that Ey had just introduced herself and was sticking out her hand in a greeting.</p><p>“Oh, are you her girlfriend?” slipped out before Keith could stop himself. He winced at his own bluntness. Hon looked away quickly like she was trying to find anything but Ey or Keith’s face to look at. Ey’s display (face?) changed to a shy emote at the question. </p><p>“Haha!” Hon laughed a little too strongly, “No, no, not at all, we’re just friends.” Hon replied and tugged the jewelry adorning her face. Ey’s face switched from bashful to very visibly upset. </p><p>“Oh, um, haha yeah.” Ey’s slightly robotic voice chimed in rather defeatedly. Keith felt terrible at how evidently awkward he’d made things. “Well, it was nice meeting you…” Ey swiftly walked away like she couldn’t take a second longer.</p><p>“Ey, I didn’t…” Hon hissed out, moving to follow Ey before realizing Keith was still there. “Sorry, paladin, maybe we can talk more later?” She offered, but he knew the conversation was over.</p><p>This is why he hates speaking. He waited for both Hon and Ey to walk away before he snuck out to the balcony outside the banquet hall. He sat angrily on one of the cold stone balcony benches. </p><p>The overlook had a perfect view of the surrounding city, but the sounds of the city’s celebrations were still just as loud at night as they were during the day, if not even louder, so no one else was out there. Never had the self-proclaimed loner of Voltron wished more to be in the crowds rather than alone up here.  </p><p>“Hey, I was looking for you! They’re about to play the record! Also, not to brag, but I think I’ve got a decent amount of guests believing that the Kraken is real and that I took it down on a solo fishing trip near Cuba.” Keith could easily recognize Lance’s approaching voice without needing to turn around.</p><p>“The Kraken is real.” Keith scowled and muttered just loud enough for Lance to hear.</p><p>Lance stopped before moving more cautiously and sitting next to Keith on the balcony bench. “You’re in a mood. What’s up? I thought you looked fine talking with Hon?”</p><p>“It was! Then I said something wrong, like always, and I messed things up between Hon and Ey.” Keith glowered. He couldn’t help but feel like a child throwing a tantrum.</p><p>“Well, what’d you say?”</p><p>“I thought you said that they were already together, so I asked if Ey was Hon’s girlfriend. Hon said ‘no, definitely not’-” He was paraphrasing that, but still, “-and Ey got upset and stormed away.”</p><p>He knew Lance tried to stop it, but he could see the quick wince that came over the blue paladin’s face. </p><p>“Ugh! Why is talking so hard?” Keith's frustration reached its boiling point.</p><p>“It’s alright, I mean, it’s not like you knew any better. Like you weren’t initially trying to start something.” Lance tried to reason, but Keith was too worked up to go with it.</p><p>“It doesn’t matter what I was trying to do. It just happens! Every time! And then it’s awkward and then I get a reputation and then it’s ‘oh, hey there’s that weird kid who's always moody and rude and a jerk’!” The red paladin yelled. Lance looked away guilty and Keith knew why. He'd done the same thing with Lance. They got off on the wrong foot, then they were rivals. It literally took an intergalactic space war and a bomb for them to get anywhere in a relationship (PURELY PLATONIC, he should add). </p><p>They sat there for silence after Keith’s outburst. The sounds of the party, the city, and the anxious tapping of the blue paladin’s foot were the only real noise. It was like the world’s worst standoff between Lance’s guilt and Keith’s anger. </p><p>One had to break, though, and despite Keith simmering down, it was Lance who nervously spoke first. “Well, I mean I could help you with some tricks of the trade?”</p><p>Keith scoffed at the idea. “I don’t think you can teach me to be good at talking.”</p><p>“Sure I can! Not as good as Shiro or Allura or me…” Keith stared at Lance. “Not helping, what I meant was I could help you with the stuff you can learn. Were you perfect at sword fighting the first time you touched a sword?”</p><p>“No… I went to Kendo classes as a kid. Shiro got me back into it when I lived with him.” Keith shifted on the balcony bench at Lance’s subtle compliment on his skills.</p><p>“Oh thank god, I was really hoping you weren’t just some master swordsman cause this analogy would not have worked. Anyways, you had to work at being good then? Like you couldn’t just beat a guy that had way more experience?” The numerous losses from when the red paladin tried to fight that one asshole Kyle who was a few levels above him as a kid gave him enough firm evidence to nod in agreement.</p><p>“So if I, an eagle-like god of sniping, were to try to face you with a sword, you’d probably beat me. But I could practice and stuff, and I might not be able to beat you because you’re, like, designed to fight up close, but! I would get better and know enough stuff to not die immediately if I had to fight with a sword, right? Talking is like that! You just need to be good enough!” Lance beamed. </p><p>Keith looked incredulously at Lance. “So you’re saying all I’ve got to do is... be passable?”<br/>
 <br/>
Lance tapped his nose twice and pointed to Keith. “Exactly! And I’ll help you!”</p><p>“Ok, but why did you just tap your noise?” Keith asked, veering just slightly off-topic.</p><p>“You know… as in 'you got it', 'you’re in the know'? Nose, know?” Lance tried to explain.</p><p>“I’ve never heard that before.”</p><p>“Well, you also messed up with the ‘I say vol, you say tron’ cheer so I don’t exactly trust you on what is well known.” Lance dragged out the ‘so’ in the middle. Keith felt highly offended.</p><p>“How is it my fault that the cheer is confusing?”</p><p>“The cheer-” Lance choked on his words before regaining his composure. “You literally do exactly what the cheer says. I <em>say</em> vol, you <em>say</em> tron! Vol!” The blue paladin looked at him expectantly.</p><p>“Vol-tron?” Keith tried. </p><p>Apparently, that was not the right answer as Lance put his face in his hands and let out a muffled no. Then he started laughing. Something told Keith that it wasn’t directed at him, that it was open and free like he was laughing at the situation more than Keith’s answer. The laugh was very infectious. Keith felt it bubbling up in him, too, until they were just two weirdos laughing towards the city on an empty balcony.</p><p>When the laughter finally fizzled down, Keith realized that Lance had effectively pulled him out of his previous angry mindset. The blue paladin was good at redirecting him like that. He also realized that Lance had offered to help him learn ‘tips’ for not being awful at anything social and Keith never answered.</p><p>“Thanks. For offering. Um, but I can’t keep having you do stuff without doing something in return.” Keith thought for a tic about what he could do before thinking about the previous conversation. “Why don’t I teach you how to use a sword?”</p><p>Lance seemed startled at the suggestion. “Uh, I don’t know, I’m not great at close combat.” He said in a rare moment of vocal self-doubt.</p><p>“You don’t have to be right? We can be passable... together.” Keith smirked and stuck out his hand to make a deal. Lance matched his smile and shook it.</p><p>“Alright... but I hope you know that I’m actually going to be a master and will eventually beat you and then you’ll cry like a baby.” <em>Ah, there’s my rival Lance</em>, Keith thought.  </p><p>“I don’t cry,” Keith said flatly but his happiness betrayed his tone.</p><p>“What was that? You’re terrified of my awesome power and now fear my inevitable rise to the top?” Lance stood up from the seat with a beaming smile. “It’s okay, Keith, I’ll consider keeping you around after I completely destroy you. For now, let’s ditch this joint.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Inside every Keith, there are two wolves. One loves Lance and wants to hold hands and be uwu boyfriends. The other is super disgusted by the idea of being soft and gross. Guess which one is going to win out.</p><p>A look behind the proverbial author's current... I want... to drop-kick... this chapter... into oblivion!! Never have I felt so much like Resetti from animal crossing, waving his pickaxe around and having steam come out of his ears! I've had to rewrite and edit this chapter so many times &gt;:( Why can't words just form from my head onto the page? If I have to read this friggin chapter one more friggin time, I'm going to scream, so sorry if it reads like Frankenstein's monster just barely stitched together, but I refuse to look at it anymore. I will edit it one day, but that day is not today.</p><p>The good news is, I am very excited about the next chapter and the chapter after that and have a full plan for them, so hopefully I will write it faster.</p><p>Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading! Thanks as always!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Step 2: Friendship</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is a VERY dialogue-heavy chapter that's got a few parts of angsty (or really just more serious) conversations, so here’s your warning in advance. Keith’s a little passive in these conversations, but I think he’s generally like that unless he’s provoked (mostly by Lance).</p><p>I would like to add that I know that Lance uses a sword in the show, but I’m not a coward like the writers of the show are (jk jk), so I’m going to give him a different close-quarters weapon next chapter. You’ll see.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been many loops since the banquet. True to his word, Lance hadn’t made Keith go back to the party since then. Instead, they spent most of their loops studying physics. And, Keith would like to add, he did remember to remind Lance about the visit with that Professor guy. When they met him, however, he almost wished he hadn’t.</p><p>Professor Y’A’Poe was a very crusty old lizard. His scales drooped over his brow, appearing like wrinkles on his weathered face. He had downturned indents around the end of his long thin snout that indicated how often he frowned. His permanently arched back was the first sign that this day, even outside the time loop, was not the first that the professor had been thoroughly lost in his work. On their Voltron journey, they have met many people that looked a certain way, but acted quite differently. For example, the Balmerans were, by human standards, very intimidating with their rocky exterior and their tall stature, but were in fact a peaceful race.</p><p>Professor Y’A’Poe was <em> not </em> one of those kinds of people. For this particular case, form shaped nature. Or nature shaped form. Keith wasn’t an expert in xenobiology. Whatever the case, he was just as mean and ornery as he looked. He often scowled at the celebrations in the streets as if happiness itself was offensive to him. Just about every sentence he spoke started with ‘well actually…' in the most godforsaken condescending voice imaginable.</p><p>The blue paladin, in his time before Keith got stuck in whatever this time loop was, had obviously perfectly planned around every one of the professors' attempts to get them to leave him alone. Even still, he would grumble about receiving a free meal from Lance, calling it a waste of his time. It made the red paladin’s blood boil. Keith wanted to ask how in the world Lance, who once filled his 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner with blue hair dye because he ACCIDENTALLY cut a SMALL piece of Lance’s hair during training, even had the patience to figure out how to work with this guy, but asking about the ‘before Keith’ part of the time loop always made Lance shut down. </p><p>Still, Lance insisted that this guy was <em> The Guy </em> to work with. Something about him studying wormholes and their effect on time was brought up, making him the best candidate for temporal issues. Lance had to do most of the talking with the professor, so it was ultimately his decision. Keith still reserved the right grumble about it in private. Mostly in private. </p><p>Luckily, once they got to a certain point in their research, they stopped having to see Professor Asshole daily -or loopily, time terminology is still confusing. Instead, Lance implemented an increase in fieldwork at the glowing cave.</p><p>Sometimes they would observe and write down any abnormal behavior (flickers, pulses, etc.). Lance gave him the stink eye when he wrote down ‘starts time loop’ because apparently that ‘doesn’t count as abnormal behavior, mullet’. Keith would beg to differ. Other times Lance would try to provoke a reaction out of it. He ordered Keith to throw rocks at it once and then told him to take notes instead because his aim was terrible. The red paladin secretly wondered if the rocks would be stuck in the time loop, too. One time, they had just stared at it. Lance still tapped his foot and fidgeted like always, but his mind was clearly a million light-years away.</p><p>Keith convinced Lance to mix in a dose of doing other things with the heavy helping of physics after that loop. Strategy, diplomacy, and the most important, break days were added to the schedule. Turns out, people might've been onto something with those 'weekend' things. They alternated who got to choose what to do on the break days.</p><p>That was another thing. They had unintentionally gravitated towards each other like they were a set of binary stars due to the… special circumstances. They didn't always talk -well, Keith didn't always talk, Lance usually did- but they were always in each other's presence. It had become so obvious that even the other team members gave them looks despite this technically being only one day since true yesterday for them.</p><p>To be fair, they still fought and bickered and full-out argued, but even that felt... friendlier, less ‘you’re my rival and I hate you’. It sounded the same sometimes, but it was like there was a code language they developed to understand each other. Truthfully, it was less code and more a look that they gave each other, but that was neither here nor there. For example:</p><p>“Why are there so many quiznaking flowers?” Keith absentmindedly asked, staring at the common areas’ greenhouse. The smell, although good, was almost overwhelming as they ate their lunch at the tables between the garden and the pool. Unfortunately, food was still necessary for every loop. Fortunately, it was not food goo. The planet had a wide assortment of safe-to-eat fruits and vegetables, no meats though if you don't count giant bug meat. Keith didn't.</p><p>“I mean it’s called Fora’Fora City which literally translates to Flower City. It’d be weirder if there weren’t flowers everywhere.” Lance said while munching on his makeshift salad.</p><p>“Right. Yeah. I knew that.” Keith lied. He refused to look at Lance, which was really his first mistake.</p><p>Lance stared for a second before asking with an ever-growing smirk, “Do you mean you didn’t know the translation or you didn’t know the city name?” The blue paladin was doing a very poor job at containing his amusement. <em> Shit </em>, Keith thought.</p><p>“We go to a lot of planets with a lot of cities, alright?” Keith tried to defend himself. It didn’t work. Lance immediately barked a laugh.</p><p>“We’ve been here forever!” Lance retorted, receiving an odd look from Shiro who was pretending to mind his own business (He was eavesdropping like he usually did. That man loved gossip).</p><p>“We have more important things than names to deal with!” Keith threw his arms up, almost knocking over his own plate of food.</p><p>“I guess that makes me feel better about you forgetting my name at the garrison." Lance snarked, grin refusing to leave his face.</p><p>"I already said sorry for that!! You can't keep using that against me!!"</p><p>"You didn’t want to give me a pinky promise! No pinky promise, no deal, mullet!"</p><p>"I'm not giving you a stupid-!"</p><p>“Hey, you guys want some prunes?” Shiro finally interjected to defuse whatever was starting. </p><p>Both of them were stunned by Shiro’s sudden intrusion, turning to look at him like he was the strangest alien on the planet. By having Keith there and having that argument at that exact point, they’d opened what Lance would call a ‘first time pathway’. For example, if they stepped on a butterfly, Coran might be around to give them a lecture about the importance of native species and how he once met a race of butterfly people. Keith made his own observations that these ‘pathways’ were why Lance often spaced out in the morning and was more active as the day went on.</p><p>The blue paladin was the first to recover and narrowed his eyes, “Prunes?” Lance asked like he was trying the word out in his mouth.</p><p>"Well, they're not actually prunes, but they taste just as good!" Shiro happily munched on his fruit, seemingly unaware of the incoming storm.</p><p>Lance repeated himself when he realized that Shiro wasn’t joking, "<em> Prunes??? </em>"</p><p>Keith watched the utter disbelief on Lance’s face with a grin. Of course, he’s had a conversation (read: he and Adam staged an intervention) with Shiro about his elder-like eating habits.</p><p>"What? They're good for you!" He said like he was the spokesman of Prunes Incorporated. The sharpshooter waves his arms around like he’s trying to find a way to explain the error in Shiro’s way.</p><p>"He also likes raisin bran." Keith stage-whispered over to Lance.</p><p>This was a step too far for the blue paladin, "<em> RAISIN BRAN? </em> Holy crow, we should be calling you <em> space grandpa </em>instead!!" Lance nearly shouts, still reeling from the initial shock. </p><p>The black paladin, leader of all the lions, didn’t appreciate the insinuation. "I'm not old! I’m 25! Kids nowadays, jeez." Shiro immediately realized what he’d just said with an ‘oh no’.</p><p>Keith looked at Lance and Lance looked at Keith and that was the mutual agreement look that meant there was no way the black paladin was getting away with these abominable food choices. Especially with the ‘kids’ comment.</p><p>“Tsk, ‘kids nowadays’? You sure about not being old?” Keith raised an eyebrow and smirked. Shiro looked half-parts shocked and in disbelief that Keith joined Lance’s side as if the beautiful gleam of excitement coming from Lance’s eyes hadn’t already made his decision for him.</p><p>“You’ve evidently got the eating habits.” Lance eagerly chimed in with a lopsided smile.</p><p>“And you’ve even got the white hairs.”</p><p>Shiro pouted and covered the white puff of hair on his head, “I’m not old! Stop it! Is bullying me what makes you guys work together??”</p><p>Of course, they’d been working together for a while, but Shiro didn’t know that. They silently decided to continue their show of comradery.</p><p>"When you were our age, did you play jacks down by the river?"</p><p>"Did you used to have to walk uphill both ways?"</p><p>"Have you ever told young whippersnappers that they better get off your lawn?"</p><p>The great elder Shiro, having much more experience and wisdom than his younger counterparts, picked up his old man fruit and made tactical retreat while huffily replying, "Why can't you guys work this well together in training??" </p><p>"Remember that dinner is at 4 p.m. today, a little later than usual, grandpa!" Lance raised his voice to make sure he could still be heard.</p><p>Keith couldn't think of another age-based joke to add on, "...You’re old!"</p><p>Lance burst out laughing despite the subpar add-on and Keith preened a little at the unspoken compliment. He liked teaming up with Lance rather than being rivals with him. Before all this, it felt like in non-combat situations, them being friendly was the exception, not the rule. Now, it has completely switched. Something in the back of his mind whispered that it <em> was </em> odd that it had changed now, but he liked their building dynamic, so he ignored the prodding voice. Still, the doubt was there...</p>
<hr/><p>If Keith was being completely honest, Lance wasn’t… great at swords. Keith still cringed at the first attempts at imitating his stance. Lance's two largest saving graces were his natural defensive positioning -which makes sense given his sharpshooting position on the team- and his scarily good flexibility -Keith nearly had a heart attack when Lance did what he called a ‘death drop’ hard into the floor to avoid a swing. </p><p>Both his advantages, however, were double-edged swords. </p><p>His defensiveness doesn’t match with the red paladin's highly aggressive style at all. When he tries to follow Keith’s moves, he stands too far back, which means he has to lunge forward to make a hit, which means he leaves himself completely open, which means he gets hit.</p><p>In terms of his flexibility, Lance may bend, but swords don’t. He can flow like water to avoid incoming attacks, but when he does get hit, the heavy sword would follow the path of its inertia instead of dodging with Lance. This means the blue paladin can easily be thrown off balance, then he gets hit again.</p><p>Now, here’s a fact about training with swords: It would be incredibly stupid to do so in the desert. Even if there were lots of big puffy clouds during a certain day that keeps repeating, the dry heat would be unbearable and it would be miserable.</p><p>So anyways, Keith and Lance were training in the desert. Honestly, he didn’t know why he thought that it was a good idea to go to the cave early and train there before testing the time loop, but to be fair, Lance thought it was a good idea too at the time. Now they were both sweating profusely and it felt like all it would take was one spark to set off an argument.</p><p>Another general fun fact: Lance was known for sometimes making stupid jokes when he’s annoyed.</p><p>The blue paladin went tumbling down in a puff of sand after yet another round of basic fighting, “Bleh! It’s in my mouth!” Lance exclaimed while getting back up and wiping the orange sand off his tongue.</p><p>“You’re fine,” Keith said. He bounced from foot to foot to shake off the post-fight jitters. He was going to put his hands over his head to breathe better, but his hair could probably cook an egg with how hot the sun was.</p><p>“Man, swords suck. Can we take a break now pleaseeeeee-?” Lance pleaded like a child forced to eat broccoli.</p><p>“No. We are literally almost done, you just have to get one hit on me, and then that's it!” Keith knew he was being stringent about this, but if he didn’t, Lance wouldn’t make progress.</p><p>He shook his head and scrubbed his hand through his hair in what looked like an attempt to get the sand out of it. “Ugh, fine. You’re lucky I have to keep interacting with you, mullet.” Lance groused with a biting tone. </p><p>Now, Keith knew it was sarcastic -he thinks it was at least. Still, that knowledge couldn’t help that the joke struck a nerve in him that he didn’t even know he had. It was that itch, that festering feeling that had been building for a while now. All the joke had done was cement it further.  As if the heat hadn’t already done so, his mood soured considerably. </p><p>“...You’ve been so much more friendly,” Keith muttered more to himself than to Lance. </p><p>Lance stopped his exaggerated motions to visibly show his confusion, “What?”</p><p>“The market, the loops since that, we’ve been friends.” Keith restated with a false calmness.</p><p>The blue paladin must have sensed his underlying tone as he shifted nervously, “Er- yeah. We have.”</p><p>“Is that because I’m the only person actually here?” The red paladin pointedly asked.</p><p>“No- what? No! That was a joke! I mean, maybe a bit nicer in the beginning," Lance stopped for the briefest of moments, “but not now!” He rushed to include, but the tic of hesitation was enough for Keith’s mind to pounce on.</p><p>“So we <em> are </em>only friends because there’s no one else here who remembers this?” Keith flat out stated his question. </p><p>“That’s- no! That’s dumb-”</p><p>“You just said that you were being ‘nicer’ because of all this!” His retort echoed off the secluded canyon walls.</p><p>“In! The! <em> Beginning </em>!” Lance emphasized, his movements growing sharper with frustration, “Not now!”</p><p>Keith didn’t know if the heat he was feeling was from the now uncloudy desert sun or his own rising anger -likely it was a mix of both- but something in him refused to stop there. “How do I know that this isn’t another stupid rival thing?”</p><p>“That doesn’t make sense, what does that even-?”</p><p>“Like is it a joke to you?”</p><p>“No! It’s not a-” </p><p>“Once this whole time loop is over, you’re going to laugh-?” </p><p>“I’m not laughing-!”</p><p>“-about how I actually thought that we were bonding-”</p><p>“Stop putting words in my mouth!! That’s not what this is-”</p><p>“Oh really? So then why?!?”  </p><p>“Why what??”</p><p>“Why <em> NOW </em>?” Keith raged, eyes narrowing studiously at Lance. The small, rational part of his mind screamed at him that he was ruining whatever rapport he had been building with Lance, but he ignored it.</p><p>He continued without waiting for an answer, “Why are we actually hanging out <em> now </em>?” He stepped closer to Lance.</p><p>The blue paladin couldn’t seem to find words despite the clear scowl that came over his lips, so Keith pushed on, “Why are we friends <em> now- </em>?”</p><p>“Because I LIKE YOU!” Lance shouts directly in his face. Keith hadn't realized how close they'd gotten to each other until their noses almost touched, “And because I want to be friends!!” Lance stomps his foot in the sand to emphasize his point.</p><p>To Keith, who had always been good at things like fighting and piloting but bad at things like names and remembering important dates, it made no sense why someone would want to be friends without an ulterior motive. “I… don’t understand.” </p><p>“I- just- you- Ugh!” Lance huffed out a breath of annoyance, “I don’t know. I don’t know! Ok! I just want to be friends with you.”</p><p>"Why now though?" Keith pushed the question again, replacing his previously angry tone with one of pure curiosity. It was what bothered him most. Why after all this time in space did he now choose to be so buddy-buddy?</p><p>The furrow of Lance's eyebrows softened as a new emotion mixed with the residing anger, “Look, you can’t tell anyone this.” Lance looked directly at him, his eyes searching for a promise.</p><p>Keith found himself unable to speak, so he just gave a sharp nod instead. </p><p>“I- for a long time, to me, you were Keith Kogane, the top of the class, the perfect pilot that <em>everyone</em> compared me to, even myself. You were an impossible standard to obtain. So when everything happened, it was like all these negative thoughts were being pushed back directly in my face and so I was… Let's be honest, I was a dick to you."</p><p>"That's not-” Keith wanted to say that it wasn’t true, but truthfully, it kind of was. He wasn’t going to pour more salt into the festering wound though so he dropped the statement.</p><p>“You asked why now, and you’re right that I was a little bit… nicer to you because we had to eventually work together. But then I also got to know you better. And you’re awkward, but it’s sweet, and you tell me to shut up, and you’re really weirdly into Mothman and you can talk about for hours on end about them-”</p><p>Keith cut him off, still just barely feeling the dying embers of his anger, “Those are backhanded compliments.”</p><p>“Then I’ll get rid of the clauses! You’re sweet and you put up with me being dumb and you’re passionate and you’re a good person.” Keith blushed harder with each of the rapid-fire complements, “Sure! You can be a little dense and ‘grrrrrrrr’ sometimes-” Lance shrugged.</p><p>“What’s <em> that </em> supposed to mean?” The red paladin crossed his arms.</p><p>“Exactly! But everyone has flaws. I mean, I’m a loudmouth, and I’m cocky and stupid-”</p><p>“That’s not true!” Now Keith was getting mad at Lance for insulting Lance? Is it possible to get whiplash from a conversation?</p><p>“See that’s what I mean though! I know for a fact that I have been all those things either to you or around you when we first got to space! But you’re still willing to defend me! From me!” Lance barked out a quick laugh, but Keith just stared at him, “You’re an… unconventional friend-”</p><p>“Thanks.” Keith deadpanned.</p><p>“-But a <em> good </em> friend nonetheless. I’m not friends with you because of some weird rival thing or just because you’re the only other person in this quiznaking time loop. I want to be-” Lance stopped himself and hesitated for a moment. “...friends with you. No matter the situation.” </p><p>Silence reigned over the desert once Lance was finished.</p><p>Keith felt like he was allergic to even looking at Lance. He was trying to calm the full face blush, trying not to think about all the compliments and most certainly not about the fact that Lance just said he liked him (admittedly in the most 'no homo' way possible). </p><p>Lance wasn’t good at silences, though, so he started rambling, “Anyways, um, that was probably way too much at once and I’m sorry. Are you hot out here? Because I’m sweltering right now and not just because of my appearance and I think I’m going to go get water so I’ll be right back and we can just forget that happened. We just, poof under the rug, no one knows-” He backed up into the cave to get out of the situation.</p><p>“Lance.” Keith stopped him. </p><p>The blue paladin shut up and scratched the back of his head in a nervous tick. It’s obvious he thought Keith meant that it was in fact too much, but really Keith just didn’t know what to say.</p><p>Some part of him was slightly disappointed with just being friends. Some part of him wanted to wax poetic about how Lance’s eyes remind Keith not of the shallow waters of the shore, but the deeper, darker blues out in the middle of the ocean. Some part of him wants to close the gap between them and kiss him- </p><p>“You’re not stupid.” Keith blurted out instead. Well, now some part of him wanted the sand to swallow him whole. <em> The part that translates thoughts to words in my mind is broken </em>, Keith decided at that moment. </p><p>“I’m… not stupid.” Lance studies him and Keith can feel the godforsaken blush build from pink to red. </p><p>“I don’t know!” Keith crossed his arms tightly. “I’m not good at friends or whatever. I’m just- You said that you were stupid earlier, but I wanted you to know that you aren’t stupid.” </p><p>Lance seemed to be trying to keep down a smile, but Lance also wasn’t the type of person that could do that. “Well, I think you’re pretty good at friends. I mean, 6 is a pretty big friend group”</p><p>“6? I- uh, I guess,” Keith said with a certain amount of insecurity, “but I’m glad we're friends... no matter the situation.” The next part came out a little more confidently</p><p>Lance gave an odd look at him before continuing, “I- We’ll talk about that later. But really, thanks, Keith. I mean it.” He smiled genuinely before turning it a little more playful.</p><p>“On a less serious note though, does this mean we can stop training now? I wasn’t kidding when I said it was hot out here.”</p><p>Honestly, Keith forgot what they were doing, but he did remember what he said, “No. You didn’t hit me.”</p><p>“What?!” The sharpshooter exclaimed with mock-outrage and threw his hands up.</p><p>“You. Didn’t. Hit. Me.” Keith made sure that Lance heard every space, “That was the deal to stop training.”</p><p>“But- but we had a bonding moment! I gave you a heartfelt confession of our friendship!” Lance whined loudly.</p><p>Keith grabbed his sword from the sand and snarkily replied, “Hm, don’t remember. Didn’t happen.” </p>
<hr/><p>In the next loop, they decided that a break day was necessary. It was Keith’s day to choose what they did which meant that they were going to practice more with sword combat, now no longer in a desert. Lance ‘casually’ mentioned around fifty times that Keith could choose anything in the city to do and that they literally just trained, but Keith felt an obligation to at least try and be a good teacher for Lance, especially after yester-loop (they were still working on terminology, ok?). Going back to Mothman could wait for his next turn.</p><p>“You should ask everyone else.” Lance panted out. “God, I don’t know how you do this all the time. Bleh.” The blue paladin completely ignored the bench in the training room and instead laid directly on the floor.</p><p>“Ask everybody what?” Keith repeated, ignoring Lance’s tiredness.</p><p>“If they're your friends! You don’t know for sure, right?” It was an innocent question, but it broke Keith’s brain a little bit. </p><p>“I- What?” <em> You can’t just do that, can you? </em>Keith contemplated.</p><p>“Yea, it’s a good idea! Come on, we’re friends now! Officially! I’m helping as friends do!” Lance declared his helpfulness, still breathing heavily. He smiled sloppily from the ground despite Keith’s evident grimace.</p><p>“That’s not… a thing people do.”</p><p>“Sure it is, I do it all the time with Hunk!”</p><p>Keith scrunched up his face and looked down at Lance, “What? When?”</p><p>“When I call him my Hunk-y wunk-y bestie westie.” Keith gagged at Lance’s nickname for Hunk. “That’s me confirming that we are, in fact, best friends. We’ve both had… toxic friendships before. So we created a system to confirm, or whatever, that we’re good.” Lance tried to explain the best he could between deep breaths.  </p><p>Keith had never really had enough friends to have a system like that. The closest would be with Shiro. When he was younger, he used to get easily overwhelmed by people which usually meant that he would lash out. Shiro was the first to figure out the pattern and he would always step in before it derailed things. <em> Similar, but not the same </em>, he guessed.</p><p>“It sounds more serious when I explain it out loud. It’s not as, like, analytical, it’s just something we do.” Lance muttered.  “Besides it’s not like they’ll remember, so you don’t have to be embarrassed.”</p><p>Keith just kind of gave him a look, “I’ll remember, though.” It was a weak argument and they both knew it.</p><p>Lance looked over at him and then at the clock. In a rare moment of seriousness that Keith knew Lance sometimes sneaked in, he said “Look, I can get Hunk alone for a bit and you can just slip in ‘hey are we friends?’, but like more subtle than that. If he doesn’t say that you guys are, I’ll eat my own shorts.”</p><p>“That’s disgusting.”</p><p>“Not liter-” Lance dramatically sighed, “ugh, whatever, I pinky promise that I will not lie to you or intentionally hurt you emotionally and you vice versa, yes?” He stuck out his hand and wiggled his little finger. Keith hated that it made him feel better to take the deal (pinky promise and all).</p><p>“So do you want me to get Hunk? He’s the absolute nicest and would probably be friends with a rock if it asked -or more than friends with a rock if you count Shay, AYE-” He quickly did finger guns at Keith, “Sorry, had to. Anyways, I promise I will drop it completely if you really don’t want to. So yes or no?”</p><p>The thing about Lance is that when he is genuinely, <em> genuinely </em> curious or asking a question, he tilts his head, not unlike a dog. It is the most tooth-rooting, disgustingly sweet thing and it melts Keith’s heart. It is so very gross that his mind thinks this way about Lance, but it does and it makes saying no when he asks for things so much harder. So Keith, being the fool he is, agrees. </p><p>Lance left him alone in the training room as he went to go get Hunk. He pulled back the hair near his neck to allow some air through to cool himself down. The valiant effort of the alien air conditioner couldn't stop the fact that the sun still beamed down through the windows. He could feel the light beads of sweat run down his face from Lance's training, but at least it wasn't like the desert heat. Keith took a deep breath in as he tried to focus on anything but the foreboding sense of ‘<em> is this really a good idea?’ </em> that came over him.</p><p>Just as Keith's regrets about his decision spiraled further though, Lance came back in with the yellow paladin in tow.</p><p>“...So my mamá, she looks at the extra fish we have leftover and then at the picadillo she’s making-” Lance acts out like he’s weighing two things in his hand. </p><p>Hunk gasped in indignation, “No! She did NOT!” </p><p>“Uh, yes she did! It was a gross beef-fish monstrosity, Hunk! Apparently, she thought we ‘wouldn’t notice’. You could taste it immediately, you have no idea!” They both laughed loudly. Keith, who had gotten less than half of the story, had no idea what was happening.</p><p>Lance called over, shocking Keith out of his thoughts, “Oh, hey Keith! Funny you are here!”</p><p>He looked blankly at Lance’s aggressively prompting stare.</p><p>“Oh! Um, yes. Funny haha.” Keith responded. <em> Nailed it </em>, he thought smugly.</p><p>“...Yes. Well anyways, I completely forgot something very important, and I’ll be right back! You two talk! Maybe about serious stuff! Ok, bye!” Lance winked not-at-all-subtly at Keith and ran out of the room. Hunk watched him leave with clear bewilderment on his face.</p><p>And then there were two. </p><p>They stood awkwardly in the training room before Hunk finally turned to Keith, “That was weird, right? Like I’m not just imagining how off he’s being today?”</p><p>“No, that was definitely weird,” Keith confirmed with a nod.</p><p>“Hm, I wonder what’s got him so wound up… He pulled me aside literally as soon as we got back from the robotics tour and he was all sweaty and he winked at you and you’re all sweaty and…” Hunk seemed to do a double-take, “Oh! Oh wow.” His eyes went wide, although Keith had no idea why.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Wow, this is… Wow, I thought you guys would’ve… Huh, weird way to introduce your relationship...” He seemed to be thinking out loud.</p><p>Keith frowned at Hunk’s rambling. Was he talking about him and Lance?</p><p>“Do… Do I have to give you the shovel talk?” Hunk asked. “Cause I will, but like we’re still good even if I have to, but Lance is my best bud.”</p><p>Surprisingly, Keith did know what a shovel talk was. He looked it up when Shiro started dating Adam (Apparently pretending to sharpen an actual knife while giving it was ‘too far’ and ‘absolutely terrifying’). He didn’t realize the principle applied to all types of relationships though.</p><p>“A shovel talk... for being friends?” <em> Was that another unspoken friend thing? </em></p><p>“Friends.” Hunk looked at him with an odd expression as Keith hesitantly nodded, “<em> Friends </em> . Righhhhtttt, right, shovel talks and friends. That’s what people do. Makes more sense than accidentally breaking bro code by thinking you guys were... So <em> just </em>friends? Really?” The yellow paladin adjusted his headband.</p><p>“Um, yeah?”</p><p>“Huh. Well.”</p><p>“And we are just friends too, right?” <em> Screw Lance’s suggestion of subtlety </em> , said Keith’s mouth apparently, <em> I’m going to make this even more awkward </em>.</p><p>“Not like <em> that </em>.” Hunk blushed and shuffled his feet. </p><p><em>Oh.</em>, Keith thought dejectedly. The disappointment he felt was… a lot. It must’ve reached his face because Hunk’s expression turned a little more kind, “But generally, well, do you want to be?”</p><p><em> Oh? </em> His mind gave a little more hope. How was he supposed to answer that? ‘Yes please, thank you very much’? He stuttered out a single “Yeah.”</p><p>“Then we’re friends, yeah!” Hunk smiled his signature sunshine smile.</p><p>Something in Keith preened with happiness. It almost cut away all the self-consciousness he felt. Almost.</p><p>“Ah, ok, yeah, I thought- um-”</p><p>“Hey, no need to explain buddy! I get it, Lance and I do the same thing sometimes.” Hunk echoed Lance’s earlier sentiment. He won’t tell Lance this, but he’s a little surprised that he was telling the truth about that.</p><p>Keith did try to show his appreciation with a small smile, “Ok, well, um, thanks.”</p><p>“Of course! And since we are friends,” A light mischievous grin rose on Hunk’s face, “Are you and Lance are <em> just </em>friends?”</p><p>He doesn’t know why conversational puzzle pieces sometimes slot into place. He doesn’t know if Hunk’s repeated phrasing is what did it or if it was the way the yellow paladin said it was what did it or even his earlier innuendos (<em> oh god </em>), but sometimes these things just click. He suddenly realized that the shovel talk was not, in fact, for all relationship types.</p><p>“What? Huh? Who?” He attempted to dodge out of the question, face growing exponentially pinker. The light in Hunk’s eyes and his knowing smile only grew. <em> It didn’t work! Abort, abort! </em>  said his mind as internal red sirens went off. </p><p>“Anyways, good talk. Thanks for the reassurance. I have to now go do regular stuff on this regular day. Right now.” Yes, Keith did sound like he was fully alien and just learned English. Yes, he was embarrassed about it, but he had no other way of getting out of the situation so speed-walking out faster than a suburban mom with little dumbbell weights was his only viable solution.</p><p>Once he reached the safety of the hall, it was like he could finally breathe again. He hadn’t even realized how stiff his body was until he left the room and his shoulders finally untensed. </p><p>Still, a small smile appeared on his face despite everything. Don’t get him wrong, it went terribly and was incredibly awkward and he never wanted to do it again… But then again, he also kind of did. Not with Hunk specifically, but just in general. It felt dumb, but it was also nice to know that they were actually friends more than just teammates. </p><p>“Hey! How’d it go with Hunk?” Lance popped out of nowhere with an intensely blinding smile. Keith jumped at the sudden arrival and then acted like he totally knew Lance was there.</p><p>“It was... the most awkward conversation I have ever been in.” He honestly answered. Lance’s smile cracked a bit with worry. “But yeah, it went well.”</p><p>Keith expected a ‘good!’ or maybe even a ‘great!’. He didn’t expect a wind-up punch in the arm from Lance. </p><p>“Ow! What the hell!”</p><p>Lance pouted like he didn’t just wail on Keith’s arm, “Don’t scare me like that!”</p><p>“I didn’t mean to! Whatever. Have you been just standing there?” Keith grumpily rubbed his now bruised arm.</p><p>“Uh duh! I wanted to make sure my pinky promise streak wasn’t broken! So what’d you guys talk about?” The thought of Hunk’s last question alone was enough for him to faintly blush.</p><p>He hates that he blushes at everything. It’s the most obvious tell in the books, a big red or pink-colored mess on his face to tell the world ‘Hey! This guy is embarrassed!’. He knows for a fact that other people have more subtle reactions like fidgeting or scratching the back of their heads, but of course, his reaction is to look like a tomato. </p><p>Keith decided to sidestep the question with his own question instead, “Wait, shouldn’t you go talk to Hunk?” </p><p>On a usual day, there’s no chance that Lance would forget about Hunk, but this wasn’t a usual day. At least, for them. Lance slaps his forehead as he remembered that he was the one that brought Hunk into the training room in the first place. “Oh right! One sec.”</p><p>Lance gave a thumbs up to Keith, stuck his head back into the training room door, and yelled, “HUNK, PIDGE IS BUILDING A DEATH ROBOT!”</p>
<hr/><p>He thought that with how awkward Hunk’s ‘friendship test’, as Lance called it, went that he wouldn’t want to do another. Something, however, wormed its way into his mind after the Hunk’s confirmation that they were in fact friends. A small, hopeful voice that wanted to see what everyone else thought. That and Hunk didn’t remember anything, as expected, so there really was no repercussions to that mockery of a conversation he had to go through the first time.</p><p>So, just a loop later, he decided to ask Pidge and Lance set out to plan when and how to get the conversation to happen.</p><p>Pidge, at exactly one varga after lunch, was tucked deep inside the workroom the penthouse came with. Lance had roped Hunk into some shenanigans so that he could minimize this loops embarrassment. According to Lance, he had approximately 30 minutes, which really was no help because he had no idea how to tell 30 minutes on an alien clock that both didn’t use those measurements and ran for 28 vargas instead of Earth’s 24 hours. </p><p>When he walked into the workroom, the first thing he noticed was that the smell was completely different from the pollen-filled scent that permeated the rest of the penthouse. The workroom was as sterile smelling as possible with the distinct exception of the smell of burning electricity and melting metal. The smell might be relatively clean, but the room was anything but. Through the piles of machinery and hanging tools, he finally saw Pidge with her posture hunched over a circuit board. It was classic Pidge behavior really. For a little while, the only noise in the room was some quick, aggressive zaps. </p><p>“HA! You goddamn wires! Think you can get the best of me? Not a chance!” That was also classic Pidge behavior. If Shiro were here, he’d probably not be mad, just disappointed at her language. She triumphantly sang her own praises as she solved whatever was messing with her project. </p><p>He honestly didn’t even know that she saw him until she beckoned him, “Keith! Hey, come check this out!”</p><p>He followed her instructions and ducked under the hanging array of robotics tools to see her cluttered worktable only to see the robotic severed head of one of the A.I. bots native to the planet like Ey. </p><p>“Jesus, Pidge!” Keith gasped with a healthy mix of horror.</p><p>Pidge frowned at his reaction, but then she just laughed, “Oh, Keith, no, this is a replica! Never used before! I’m not a psychopath! It’s got the base factory settings right now.”</p><p>He breathed out a sigh of relief. It was a little uncomfortable to have what was essentially the head of a sentient thing, but he guessed that’s kind of also what modern biologists do with testing on cloned brains...</p><p>She ignored his second reaction and continued, “But really, check this out! The program isn’t at all like a video game where they’d have a set series of lines pre-recorded based on the situation! The code works as an <em> actual brain </em>! It makes fresh decisions on the fly and knows how to place context and everything!” </p><p>Keith, who didn’t play video games and didn’t know much about the brain, just nodded like he got it.</p><p>She grabbed his wrist and forced him to get closer, “Watch, watch!” </p><p>A spark burst through the screen as the blank display turned on. A very neutral, staticky voice said, “This is a Mark 5.25.4 Replica <em> ALO’ALU </em> Robot. Please proceed with the test.”</p><p>Pidge pushed her glasses up and smiled like she was Doctor Frankenstein creating the monster. Keith, on the other hand, moved a little from side to side to see if the bots ‘eyes’ were following him (they were and yes, it was creepy).</p><p>Being the mad scientist she was, Pidge responded to the robot's test message, “The trophy would not fit in the brown suitcase because it was too big. What was too big?”</p><p>“The trophy.” It answered instantly. Pidge’s smile grew wider as she made a ‘ta-da’ motion towards the bot.</p><p>Keith didn’t get it. </p><p>“Cool.” He tried to be supportive, but it fell very flat. She deflated a little bit and canceled the test.</p><p>“Hunk would appreciate it,” She grumbled before speaking louder, “It’s called Commonsense Reasoning. For us, it’s an easy question, because we have experience with objects and know how language works. For an A.I. who doesn’t know what a trophy is or a suitcase is or what ‘<em> it </em>’ is referring to or what relative size is, it’s really hard. These bots are built-in with experiences and can make educated guesses on what the question means!"</p><p>“... Right, good.” This time he did get it, but it didn’t make it more impressive. It wasn’t exactly his area of interest.</p><p>“I’m surrounded by Neanderthals.” She shook her head sadly, “So I’m assuming you came in here for something else other than the super-advanced technology. What’s up?” </p><p>“I just wanted to ask if we were friends?” <em> Direct to the point, simple </em>, he tried to keep up his ‘cool guy’ look.</p><p>Pidge just stared at him with an analytical gaze. His composure instantly broke a little bit as his palms started to sweat.</p><p>“Yes.” She simply replied as she went back to tweaking the wiring of the robot. </p><p>Nothing more, nothing less. Just a yes. Even so, a warm, fuzzy feeling invaded his body once again. He let out a string of words that he assumes sounds like ‘cool, yeah, alright’ etc., and shuffled his feet awkwardly. <em> Was there supposed to be more? Or were Hunk and Lance the exception? </em>Keith contemplated.</p><p>When one of the wires finally moved into place, she wiped her brow and looked back at him. She held his eyes for a moment and then said, “Keith, you and me, we’re the only introverts on a team full of extroverts. There is one truth in that.” She pointed to her eyes and then to his in a ‘watch me’ motion. He nodded along.</p><p>“If we don’t stick together, we’ll be torn apart by those social fools.”</p><p>He never thought about that before… “So, it’s us versus them?” </p><p>“For the most part.” Pidge shrugged and then stuck out her hand. “We watch each others’ back.” She made it sound like they were in battle. He shook her hand in agreement and an air of respect radiated through the room.</p><p>“Alright.” Keith agreed, “Then I should tell you Lance knows about the death robot you’re building and he might tell Hunk.” Lance and he might have kissed and made up (figuratively!), but what kind of rival-turned-friend would he be if he didn’t still mess with him? Besides, Pidge was his only introvert-friend. Officially.</p><p>“Death robot-? <em>My mini Liberty Prime??</em>” Keith had no idea what that was, but he nodded anyway, “That little rat! I knew he was being suspicious today! No one was supposed to know about that! Hoh-oh-oh, Lance’s going to regret this so much.” The look that came across the green paladin’s face had a very dangerous glint. </p><p>As if summoned by talk of himself, Lance chose that moment to walk back into the workroom with Hunk. Guess it’d been 30 minutes.</p><p>“You!” Pidge screamed, finger-pointing at Lance. </p><p>Lance and Hunk both looked at each other. Hunk backed away quickly and as her accusing finger stayed on Lance, the blue paladin gained a healthy amount of fear in his eyes, “Me?” His stance indicated that he was definitely in fight-or-flight mode.</p><p>“<em> SNITCH! </em>” </p><p>Lance, being as ‘not stupid’ as he was, had chosen flight. Pidge bolted out of the room just as fast. <em> Maybe I took things a little too far </em>, He thought as he heard an assortment of loud noises from down the hall.</p>
<hr/><p>Coran was next in line for Keith’s ‘happy friendship questionnaire’ (He didn’t choose the name). Luckily, Coran didn’t require nearly as much planning. Lance actually didn’t even have to interfere to get him alone, which was good because Lance was also still mad at him for telling Pidge about the death robot. </p><p>The advisor himself was currently on his knees, covered in the dirt of the garden as he was every loop. Garden, Keith would like to add, is a massive understatement. Like most of the flora in the city, the garden was expansive and thick enough that they could barely be seen, much less heard, from the rest of the center area of the penthouse. The perfect spot really. Coran, however, was different from Pidge or Hunk in his eyes. They didn’t work as closely together, so Keith was a little more guarded with the eventual question he wanted to ask.</p><p>“Number 4! Well, hello my boy! Would you like to help?” Coran asked cheerfully.</p><p>“Um, sure.” </p><p>Keith uncertainly knelt to the patch they were gardening. Under Coran’s guidance, he started to help pull some of the invading weeds from the surrounding alien vegetable patch.</p><p>“Now as you may have heard, my grandfather Hieronymus Wimbelton, for which I am partially named after, was a brilliant engineer and architect! Pull the green-headed one there, and twist like you’re unscrewing a Hubledasherino.” Keith didn’t know what a Hubledasherino was, so he just tried to twist like a normal person. The squirming thing came out all the same, although it disgusted him that the plant was <em> squirming </em> like a weird snake.</p><p>“However! What you may not have known was that the Smythe family line was famous for our green thumbs!” Coran twirled his mustache, surprisingly getting very little dirt in it, “Ah, if you didn’t know, that’s an old Altean expression meaning that we could wrangle any dastardly green veggie with just our thumb! Not literally, of course, we would likely have to use our whole bodies to pin them down.”</p><p>Coran grabbed the writhing vegetable from Keith just before it started to snake around his arm, “Wait, ‘pin them down’?” Keith questioned, not sure if he heard that right.</p><p>“Of course, these are quite similar, but the veggies on Altea grew to nearly quadruple the size! My great grandmother was the best of the best when it came to veggie picking. Her crew had the least deaths and the largest hauls!” Coran proudly proclaimed.</p><p>If it was even possible, his bewilderment grew even further. “Least deaths??” He felt like a parrot, repeating every tidbit of information Coran gave, but how was he supposed to react to farming<em> to the death </em>?</p><p>“Oh yes, it was very violent! Nasty business, those vegetables were, but apparently great for stew! Travelers came from all around the universe to experience the great Altean veggie farmers.” He stared off wistfully.</p><p>Between the rock rain and the killer carrots, Keith was starting to see why Alteans were so physically strong and magically inclined.</p><p>“Of course, those were the olden days! The creation of food goo helped save many Altean lives since then. Of course, it’s just us eating it now...” Coran trailed off as he pulled up another root plant.</p><p>The quiet, shared knowledge of what happened to Altea crushed whatever that conversation was. Still, Keith stayed and helped. The older man’s knowledge of life on other planets seemed to include even the bugs and plants, as he explained what they were weeding away. Keith, with what little social grace he could muster, asked as many questions as he could like what the strangest things he had found on other worlds. Though he couldn’t understand the in-depth analysis of whatever a ‘love bug’ was, it was interesting to learn more about what the universe held.</p><p>Time flew by in the garden, soon they had moved on from the wall plants instead of those in the raised boxes on the floor. Coran was the one that started the next conversation. </p><p>“You remind me of my daughter-in-marriage.” He said between plucking out the heavy hanging flowers.</p><p>Keith stopped his mimicked pulling motion and stole a quick glance at Coran. “I didn’t know you...” He started, but it was impossible to finish the sentence. A quickly covered up sadness flickered over Coran’s face.</p><p>The princess’s advisor nodded soberly and moved to smell the flower, “I did, lad. She was every bit the warrior you are now, just as fiery. And like you, she had a good heart. Cut here, at an angle.” Keith did what he was told, cutting one of the large plum-colored blossoms like Coran had instructed. </p><p>“She and my son, they rarely got along in the beginning.” He chuckled softly at some distant memory, “You wouldn’t believe the arguments they used to get in. Would wake up their whole ship over the smallest things, those two. If you had met them at their wedding though... I suppose Lance’s Earth saying is true; contrary people are drawn to each other.”</p><p>“Opposites attract?” Keith questioned, not that he was really one to know the wording of idioms.</p><p>“Hm, no, that doesn’t sound nearly as good. Doesn’t quite flow off the tongue.” Keith huffed a small laugh and Coran gave a tight-lipped smile, just barely visible under his mustache before he continued.</p><p>“I thought when…” He cleared his throat, “I know that we Alteans have had our difficulties with you Earthlings, you more so than the others, but I wanted to thank you. You bring my daughter's fighting spirit to the team. It’s what she would have wanted and I never thought I would…” Coran’s message was clear, even if the statement couldn’t be finished.</p><p>The older advisor took a deep breath in, wiped his slightly dewy eyes, and that was that. “Well, anyway, I think I’ve seen a certain blue paladin circling the edge of the garden for quite some time now. It’d be best if I let you go.”</p><p>Keith shook his head and offered, “I can help more-”</p><p>“No, no, you’ve indulged this old gardener for far too long.” Coran declared and ushered the paladin away. Keith tried to give the dark purple flower back for the basket Coran was keeping, but he refused, “Keep it. It’ll be a good gift.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Keith said, tightly clutching the stem of the blossom as he walked away. He hoped that Coran knew that the gratitude was for more than just the flower. He realized he never asked what he meant to ask, but he also found that he didn’t really need to. It brought a light feeling to him like he was walking on air.</p><p>He hadn’t realized how long he’d been helping until he got out of the garden. The sun had long since passed its’ max altitude, leaving one of the walls with a growing shadow in its wake. </p><p>Still, the light shined directly on the team’s current resident physics expert-in-training, who was working on some problem in the middle of the common area. </p><p>Keith sat at Lance’s cluttered mess of a table, flower souvenir still in hand. When Lance didn’t acknowledge his existence, he realized he was still annoyed about the whole death robot situation.</p><p>“Hi.” He said to force Lance to talk.</p><p>The blue paladin didn’t look up from the research paper he was reading -or trying to read. He was doing the thing he did on his ‘can’t focus’ days where he just stared at one line for a while. “Is Coran going to chase after me with a mini-taser?” Lance asked pettily. Keith just sighed.</p><p>“No, I was just helping him in the garden. No mini-tasers, I swear. I didn’t know she would try to do that.” Keith attempted to clarify. He gently pushed the tablet Lance was using away from him so that they could actually talk.</p><p>Lance accepted the removal of the work with little resistance, instead favoring to raise a disbelieving eyebrow at Keith, “You didn’t know Pidge -our Pidge- would do that?”</p><p>“Ok, I didn’t know she’d take it <em> that </em> far. I didn’t know her… um, creation was that important to her.” Keith scratched the back of his head. He expected something, but certainly not that much.</p><p>“Hmph.” Lance huffily replied with crossed arms. </p><p>He tried to think of a way to say sorry when a certain plum-colored object caught his eye. He awkwardly handed him the cut flower he had to the annoyed paladin in an unspoken apology. </p><p>Lance looked at him with some level of suspicion, but eventually, he took the blossom. The sharpshooter inspected it, turning it in his hand to look at the different petals. After bringing it closer to his nose and smelling it, a small closed-mouth smile took over his face. He looked back at Keith briefly to basically say ‘fine’ and then placed the flower in behind his own ear.</p><p>Keith couldn’t bite down his own smile at the acceptance of his gift.</p><p>“So how’d you know this is my favorite color?” Lance asked with a playful wiggle of his eyebrow.</p><p>“Lucky guess.” He mentally reminded himself to thank Coran again sometime.</p>
<hr/><p>Asking Allura was always going to be different from anyone else. For one, he and Allura had a very… tentative relationship following her reaction to his heritage. Even after they made up, the red paladin always felt like he was walking on eggshells around her. Another thing was that she was their leader, just as much as Shiro, which put a gap between them usually.  </p><p>At this time in the day, Allura was happily gossiping with her mice. Usually, Shiro was here too and they’d be engaged in small talk, but Lance had gotten Shiro to leave the makeshift meeting room for a bit by saying that he ‘lost his family ring’. Shiro, of course, helped because he knew how important family was to Lance. What he apparently didn’t know was that Lance didn’t have a ‘family ring’. The fool’s errand left an opening for Keith to talk to Allura alone. Well, alone with her mice. Alone enough.</p><p>“Ah, hello Keith.” Allura greeted him once she spotted him. The mice scurried away as the mice generally do when others are introduced into the equation (He really didn’t get how her telepathy thing worked with them, but he mostly steered clear of the mice).</p><p>“Hello, princess. Um, I have something I’d like to ask if that’s ok?” He started, just as awkwardly as always.</p><p>She sat up a little straighter as if preparing herself. “Yes, of course. Please sit.” She gestured to the chair across from her. </p><p>He took a seat and nervously shifted. There was no real point in dancing around anything with Allura. She was as smart as a whip and she could just as easily flex her skills in diplomacy to find out what a conversation was really about. </p><p>Keith avoided her inquisitive gaze as he asked, “Are we... friends?” </p><p>The princess looked obviously taken aback by the question, “Are we- oh Keith, you are truly adept at all things a paladin requires. Your piloting is near unparalleled and your way with a sword is beyond many of the top-trained forces we face.” </p><p>“I- um, thank you.” He swallowed. He deflated just a bit. Her words were kind, but it wasn’t exactly what he asked. Was that all he was to her?</p><p>She caught his eye and it was like she could read exactly what he was thinking, “However, I fear I have made you think that your skills in this war are all you are worth.” She said with great remorse. </p><p>“It’s alright, I know the war is important.” He said. It was an obvious statement, but it still hurt. </p><p>“No, it is not alright.” She crossed her hands properly before continuing, “I believe I need to tell you something, but please promise me that you shall let me finish before you comment.” She insisted.</p><p>Keith didn’t know what to say so he just nodded in response.</p><p>She looked down as if she was formatting what she was going to say in her head. “For me, a week before you and the rest of the paladins woke us up, I was organizing a party for my eldest cousin’s wedding announcement.” </p><p>His eyes went wide at the start of the story. Of the Alteans, Allura was the one who never spoke of pre-war Altea. Well, maybe to Shiro or Coran, but never to him at least. Her reserve was for obvious reasons, but he couldn’t understand why she was now breaking her silence with him. </p><p>“At the time, I was so worried about matching the proper colors and preparing the juniberry flower arrangements.” She let out a wet laugh. “My cousin, they told me that I was working too hard, that I could put some more on their plate so that I could be with my friends instead of being in the stuffy castle halls.”</p><p>Her composure broke as tears fell freely, “But- but I told them- I told them that there was always tomorrow. I knew that the tension with the Galra was high, but everyone thought that life would move on as it always had. I- I could never have imagined-” She forcefully cut herself off to stop a sob from coming out.</p><p>He knew what she asked, but he couldn’t just sit by and watch her force herself to relieve everything that happened. “Allura, you don’t have to-”</p><p>“No, I must. I- I must.” She scrubbed furiously at the tears, “Even now, there are some nights where the only thing keeping me going is this vile, poisonous rage, this anger that everyone on my planet’s lives just stopped. That they never got the chance to grow up and have fun and have a- a family. There are times where all I can think about is this war. Everything becomes analytical, everything is a strategy. During those times, I would do anything to win the war, to stop anyone else from having to feel the pain that I have felt.”</p><p>“With that in mind,” Allura lightly grabbed his shoulders and looked directly at him like she was speaking to his soul, “You are so much more than your abilities in this war. I’m so sorry if I have ever implied that your worth is only valid as a paladin or as a pawn. You are so much more. You are important to me not because you are the best pilot or the best swordsman or the red paladin, but because you are my friend. I care about you so greatly.” </p><p>He released a breath that he has no idea how long he’s been holding. Truthfully, he had never thought about how much he’d ingrained himself into the war and fighting. He truly does like sword-fighting and training, even long before all this. He’s always been aggressive and abrasive, even before becoming the red paladin. But a part of him also knows that she’s right. That he, like everyone on the team, has felt so much pressure with the constant battles that he often sees his own worth in his usefulness. He feels like something just lodged itself in his throat. He doesn’t know if he can speak right now without the threatening sensation of tears.</p><p>She continued in a whisper, “You and the others are all I have in this universe. I know that this is war and that this ask of you is ultimately impossible to predict, but please do not sacrifice yourself just because you think the battle must be won. We can find another way. I- I truly do not know if I can take another loss to my family.” </p><p>They both knew that, in the end, he couldn’t promise to not take action when push comes to shove. He can’t promise that he wouldn’t lay down his life if the war called for it. The universe is too important. However, he never… He didn’t… He used to be able to count on one hand how many people he knew actually cared about him. Now, the number has nearly tripled. It’s incredibly overwhelming.</p><p>They had more conversation after that. He thinks and hopes he said ‘thank you’ when they finally parted ways. Truthfully, if Lance asked him, he couldn’t tell him what they spoke of after what she said in her explanation. He was far too lost in his own thoughts to be in the conversation fully.</p><p>Lance must have noticed his distant look because he didn’t ask afterward. Instead, they just sat near each other as Keith contemplated Allura’s words. He thought about what happened in the other loops, too, and gratefulness washed over him for the time loop. It felt odd to be thankful for a limbo state that clearly had no care for whatever Lance and Keith did, but he doesn’t think that he would have ever clarified this stuff without it.</p><p>After more thought, he decided to plan for the one last person on the list.</p>
<hr/><p>Asking Shiro was always going to be different from anyone else, but for the exact opposite reason as asking Allura. Keith did in fact know that they were friends. He didn’t know what exactly Shiro saw him as, but to Keith, Shiro is the closest thing he’s had to family after his dad.</p><p>Shiro was... important. Not that everyone else wasn't important too! That's not what he meant! It's just- Everything Keith has now is because, for some completely unknown reason, Shiro cared enough about the orphan kid who just carjacked him. His kindness is a debt Keith will never be able to fully repay. </p><p>So, Keith wanted to make an extra effort, even if it was like the equivalent of a kid showing their parents a macaroni portrait they made of the family. Poorly executed, but holding some untold feeling that meant it would get put on a fridge or something. </p><p>He planned everything out with Lance. They’d run the loop the same as the first one for the morning, no excuses to Shiro about missing training and no skipping out. He got up to the eternally broken alarm, made sure he put on a fresh set of training gear and that he looked fine. He felt like he was going to a job interview. <em> Effort </em>, he reminded himself.</p><p>He walked past Lance who was in the pool on a floaty just like the first day. He thinks it might be the same floaty, but it’s been a while since then. He must have been showing his nerves because Lance tilts down his sunglasses and gives him a reassuring smile.</p><p>“Just breathe. You’ve got it.” is all Lance said. Keith took a deep breath in and straightened his back.</p><p>He walked down the hallway past the common area and pretended he was lost (like he hadn’t been down this hall a million times). </p><p>“There you are! You should check this place out!” Shiro unknowingly repeated his words loudly from the training room. He waved Keith down and smiled from the door frame.</p><p>Keith perked up and walked a little faster. Honestly, another perk to the time loop was that Shiro was having one of his good days. The red paladin could tell that he was actually happy, free from the burden of his undiagnosed PTSD, if only for just today. Or forever. Whichever way you look at it. He entered the training room and looked around its familiar walls.</p><p>“Everywhere the light touches is our kingdom, young one.” The black paladin misquoted again. He spread his arms out wide to show off the room, which made Keith huff out a laugh. Shiro grinned proudly at the reaction.</p><p>He didn’t remember what he said the first day in between the two sections so he just decided to skip the pleasantries. He grabbed the sword he’d been using to teach Lance and said, “So, want to fight? </p><p>Shiro barked out a laugh, “Eager much?”</p><p>Keith just shrugged.</p><p>It felt good to train with Shiro. He’d done it a few times since the first time but had stopped soon after he and Lance started working together. Shiro weaved and blocked like the professional he was. Keith fought just as hard, pushing back on any attack that came his way. The exercise was rewarding and it definitely helped Keith’s nerves like Lance had said when they planned this. </p><p>The practice fight lasted a decent amount of time. They were both tired if short heavy breathing was anything to go by. Shiro was the first to tap out. He declared that he was going to shower with a clear underlying meaning that Keith should too.</p><p>“Wait!” Keith blurted out to stop Shiro from leaving, “I wanted to talk to you about something real quick.” </p><p>Shiro quickly stopped his exit and stepped back towards the red paladin. Both of them knew that Keith wasn’t usually the one to start conversations, so he quickly gained the black paladins' undivided attention.</p><p>What was he saying? Oh, his speech. Right. He wrote and then memorized it the loop before this. He wasn’t exactly the type of person that could just come up with things off the top of his head unless it was from a very short list of subjects. All he had to do was start talking.</p><p>“I- uh- I just um…” Why did he think going over it twice was enough to memorize? Keith was forgetting what he wrote. Why was he so bad at words? He was definitely going to mess this up.</p><p>Shiro gently grabbed his shoulder and smiled softly, “Hey, just breathe. What’s up?”</p><p>Keith once again breathed in and tried to remember it the best he could, “Yeah. I- uh- just wanted to thank you. For always being there for me. I know I haven’t always been the easiest person to be around, but you did so much for me growing up.” He briefly looked away as he realized he’d forgotten the last section. </p><p>He was going off script here, but he continued anyway, “Um- and I don’t want to pressure you or anything, but to me, you’re my brother. I’ll always try to find you and help you. It’s the least I can do-”</p><p>The speech went out the window when Shiro's eyes started glistening. Why was everyone about to cry these loops? He must have messed up, he messed up. He must’ve said something wrong and it made Shiro sad. Not good, very bad. Maybe it was talking about finding him, did that bring back bad memories? The panic was etched on Keith’s face as he was about to desperately apologize, but Shiro started first.</p><p>“It’s okay, Keith. I’m just happy. Really happy.” Shiro read him like a book. The smile that came over the slightly older man’s face was near blinding.</p><p>Keith just stared at him for a second as relief poured through him, “Oh.”</p><p>“That was really sweet. I know you’re not big into speaking, so thank you. I- This means so much to me... You mean so much to me. More than I think I’ll ever get to express. I just… That was so kind. Where’d all this come from?” He radiated his happiness as he asked the question.  </p><p>“I… um… I’ve thought about it for a while. I just wrote it down and stuff. But I forgot some of it.” Keith’s face went a bit red and he looked away, “You deserved to know though.”</p><p>“You wrote it down? That’s so sweet.” Shiro cooed again and looked like he wanted to pinch Keith’s cheeks like he was some baby.</p><p>Keith’s face scrunched as he shifted his eyes back to the black paladin in a half-hearted glare. “Stop saying that, I’m not sweet.” The glare didn’t work, as evident by the look Shiro was giving him, “You’re embarrassing me.” The red paladin grumbled. </p><p>“It’s my sworn duty to embarrass my little brother.” Something in Keith stuttered at the phrasing, “Can I hug you? Please?”</p><p>Keith shrugged in the way that meant ‘I guess, whatever’ and Shiro pulled him into a tight hug. And if his eyes were maybe watering a little bit, it was because the embrace was sweaty and gross and they both smelled terrible. Definitely not because Shiro just called him his little brother. Keith hugged him a little tighter. Sometimes, the time loop wasn’t that bad.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Me looking like that disheveled bratz doll meme: 10,000+ words about Keith making friends, take it or leave it.</p><p>Also, I haven't watched canon Voltron in forever (・・;)  so… uh... if I miss a canon thing, I’m sorry, but I am around 5 billion fanfics deep into fanon. Few notes about my headcanons so that we’re all on the same page:<br/>1) Keith being uber stubborn about friends is based on my own experiences (amped up by 100). Past situations can really mess with your ability to tell when you're friends with someone and can make you feel like you are over assuming where you’re at with people. So that’s why he’s like ‘no I’m not friends with the people I’ve been on a ship with for several months, why do you ask?’<br/>2) I’m basing Allura’s section and Keith’s issue with where his importance lies on how often he’s 100% down to die for the cause. I know they don’t directly correlate, but I think it’s reasonable to think a teenager in war is going to have some issues with his life in the balance of the universe (Lance’s got something similar, but we aren’t talking about that rn).<br/>3) I added some people to Allura and Coran’s past because I don’t think that the only people they’d know was Alfor.<br/>4) This story is set intentionally vague on the timeline and they’ve been in this time loop for an intentionally vague amount of time because... I’m the captain of this ship right now. The basic 411 is that Allura has already apologized for her behavior with Keith’s Galra stuff (I didn’t want to step on the writers' toes bc I know that I can’t write that well lmao so imagine she did it a little earlier), but Shiro hasn’t disappeared either. We are somewhere in season 2/ fantasy land of Voltron where Shiro is still here because I love him &lt;3.</p><p>The next chapter will hopefully be a little more shenanigans-filled, I’ve currently written a few scenes and one of them is about Lance’s grandma liking the song SexyBack if that gives you an idea. There may even be a little *puts rose in mouth* romance, if you know what I mean…</p><p>Anyways, thanks for reading, you get a good noodle star for sticking through my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad writing skills!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Step 3: Stepping Outside The Comfort Zone, Part 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter isn’t as long, I’ll talk about that in the endnote… If you thought the last chapter was a lot of dialogue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaaUOQ0wbgU</p>
<p>I really push the ‘attempt at humor’ tag in this chapter. Can we get an F in the chat?</p>
<p>Also, you folks in the comments are so niceeeeee uwu, I really really appreciate the comments, you literally make my day, ilysm &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Keith may not be the best at social situations, but he could at least recognize the signs of Lance’s growing frustration with his sword. His progress (or lack thereof) was only exacerbated by the leaps and strides they were making in </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now, he couldn’t exactly ease up on training. Lance was smart enough to notice if he was going easy (and would not appreciate it). He tried going through warm-ups and non-competitive practice for longer, but the sharpshooter got antsy far too fast to accept a full training session of forms and stances.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Another session of losses and Lance sulked over to the bench. No 'witty' comebacks, no teasing, nothing. He just sat down and spun the sword he was using for practice into the mat in a way that made Keith cringe a little.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now, Keith could try to cheer him up. He could say that he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a gun, so Lance shouldn’t have to fit with a short-ranged weapon. He could say that it’s all okay and that Lance was doing fine (which wasn’t technically a lie, he was better than most people back on Earth). But Keith didn’t know how to cheer people up like that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If there is one thing that Keith did know, however, it’s that competitiveness was a shared trait between them, “Okay, enough, I’ve got a dare for you.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He plucked the sword out of Lance's hand and put it back on the shelf.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The blue paladin, chin resting on his hands, asked with a straight face, “Is it a double-dog dare?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Um, sure, two dogs are daring you. Pick any other close-range weapon in the room.” Keith gestures to the room-long rack of various weaponry. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Why?" Lance tilted his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because maybe swords aren't your forte," Lance looked even grumpier at that, but Keith pushed on, "But you know what? Swords are overrated.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The blue paladin went bug-eyed, “What- you- Can I get a recording of you saying that?” He asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re in a time loop so it wouldn’t matter.” As if Lance needed the reminder. “Really though, if you don’t like swords, you shouldn’t use a sword. You deserve a weapon that’s unique to your skills.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thanks, but I- uh…” Lance looked overwhelmed by the number of choices, “I have no idea where to even start…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You're smart, I trust you,” Keith added on. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For once, Keith isn’t the one blushing. Lance looked away sheepishly with a smile on his lips and Keith feels like he’s won the best prize.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You choose a weapon and practice with it for a few loops and then we’ll spar. I’ll even go easy on you.” Keith smirked as he started walking out to let Lance choose. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance immediately switched from self-doubt to self-confidence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, as if, mullet! You go easy on me?? I’m going to go easy on you ! You’re gonna get your butt whooped so bad you’re gonna feel it for three loops afterward!” Keith tried to keep in his snickering when Lance’s jeers followed him out of the room.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next few loops were… weird. For someone who lived in an isolated desert shack, being alone came as second nature. Being lonely, on the other hand, was an oddity to Keith. It’s not even like they don’t see each other at all during the day. Most of the loops were still dedicated to working on a way out (they were getting very close to the testing stage), yet the vargas alone seemed to stretch on forever.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It certainly didn't help that when Lance was in the training room, he absolutely refused to let Keith see what his choice was. The blue paladin would scream at him anytime he entered the room to leave. When Keith asked him how it was going, Lance would just give that stupid lopsided smile that screamed ‘ I know something you don’t ’.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But finally, after many attempts at sneaking a peek at the weapon of Lance’s choosing, the loop had finally come for them to spar. The curiosity that had been building exponentially reached its ultimate conclusion as they both strolled into the training room.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The blue paladin plucked one of the longer weapons off the rack and twirled it in his hand. He presented it with a very smug smile, declaring his choice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith played the audio description of the weapon and immediately turned it off as soon as he heard the weapon's official name, “No. You can’t use this one.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What! Boo! You said any weapon! I thought you said you trusted me...” Lance pouted dramatically, clutching the staff of the weapon to his chest. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wha- I do trust you!” Keith huffed out angrily, he wasn’t going to let Lance spin this around,  “Give me two reasons besides the name.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He smugly thought he’d gotten Lance caught. Really, he jinxed himself there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You said that I needed something with a little longer range because I’m not comfortable with being super up close and personal. This is a long-range weapon and can control the pace of the fight. Also, it’s a little more bendable, so it can run with a hit without throwing me off balance.” Lance dutifully recited his reasonings.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Damn, those were good reasons , Keith scowled in defeat. Secretly, it made his heart stutter just a little bit to know that Lance really listened to him and respected his evaluations. He also knew, though, that there was a very obvious ulterior motive.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“PLUS IT’S A LANCE!” There it is , Keith rolled his eyes, “It’s literally named after me!! How can I not use it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Truthfully, it was less of a traditional lance and more of a longer spear. Lances (not the paladin) were used on horseback or in attack formations, not one-v-ones. There’s no way he’s convincing the blue paladin of that though.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It is not named after you , you’re probably named after it .”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Whatever, man. You’re just scared, aren’t you? I think you’re a chicken~ .” Lance provoked in a sing-song voice. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Like a performer choosing a volunteer from the crowd, the blue paladin walked over to the mat in the center of the training room and pointed his spear at Keith.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Fight me, sir chicken!" He declared</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not a chicken , I just-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bwak!” Lance squawked at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, real mature-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bwak bwak!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could feel his eye twitch in annoyance, “Alright, fine! You want to get beat with your spear-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s a lance.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“-Then let’s go.” Keith marched angrily to the mat to take up Lance’s stupid challenge. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sun shined brightly in the training room, only adding to the competitive glint in his opponents' eyes. Keith got into his normal, familiar stance. Lance let his choice in weaponry fall a little bit so that one of his hands was at the shoe-end of the spear and the other was in the middle of the shaft.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance’s stance showed that he was going to play defensively. Just to confirm it, once they were both ready, Keith took a first test swing forward. It was a quick move, easy for Lance to block and easy for Keith to recover from. Lance jumped back to keep the space between them further apart.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That was a baby swing, mullet.” His opponent sharply smiled and jabbed with the long-reaching spear at Keith, which the red paladin neatly dodged.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It was a test .” He retorted, trying to find an opening. Admittedly, he couldn’t recall ever facing a spear-user before in combat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>While Keith paced like a wolf circling its prey, Lance stayed relatively still. His feet were planted firmly the same as when he's the team's sharpshooter. Keith sidestepped and went for a hit, only to nearly meet the business end of Lance's weapon. When he tried to hit the spear down to throw him off, Lance swiveled both weapons to the ground so that Keith couldn’t advance either.   </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wasn’t getting anywhere at this distance. The spear was always going to have an advantage if he couldn’t get any closer. However, he couldn’t just go at it without getting impaled (not literally, the weapons were dulled for practice). So he decided to take a calculated risk; Lance favored his right side -more specifically his trigger hand- so if he timed it correctly, he could jam Lance, get closer and get a hit...</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith lunged forward, successfully avoiding the currently dull head of the spear and dodging to the right. Even if Lance’s knee-jerk reaction would be to follow with his weapon, he couldn’t hit Keith with more than the metal shaft. Once he got in place, he could hit Lance where he was open easily-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Thud!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something hit him in the back of the head. Suddenly all his forward momentum worked against him. Whatever hit him made him overshoot where he was planning to land. Only his instinctive movement to turn and dig in his heels stopped him from going careening into the mat. Even if he was standing though, the first hit means a win for Lance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance beamed and twirled the weapon in his hand like a baton, “HA! Oh yeah! I like lances!” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I like Lances too, but you don’t see me bragging about it, he grumpily thought as he rubbed the back of his head. “How’d you even hit me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ah, a good ol’ fashion hand switch-a-roo.” Lance declared proudly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The blue paladin gripped the spear where he had been, hands at the back and middle section. Then with a quick pull, the whole weapon shifted backward and his hands moved to the middle and front grips. So it was the butt of the spear that hit him? No wonder he hadn’t really seen what happened.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I… didn’t think about that.” It was a smart move. It also wasn’t one Keith was going to fall for again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah well, it comes with my weapon being named after me and all,” Lance smirked and puffed out his chest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s absolutely not named after you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bah, you’re just a sore loser. I finally won. I demand a parade and a medal for my victory.” Lance said it so seriously that Keith had to laugh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Let's see you do it again, and then I'll get right on it."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn't win again (so no medal or parade), but it seemed one win was enough to lift his spirits. Besides, the rest of the matches, while still losses, were much closer. His stance looked more comfortable and Keith had a harder time getting a hit in. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When they were finally finished, Lance placed his… lance back on the rack and stretched, “Well, I have to think about my dare now...”  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith wiped the sweat from his brow, “Huh?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A two dog dare for a two dog dare, mullet. Them's the rules. Now I have to warn you, Hunk won’t do dares with me because I am just that good at them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That was… ominous. Hunk indulged Lance in a lot of things. He even backed him up on those stupid comebacks Lance made when he couldn’t think of something else to say. Keith really didn’t like the idea of whatever made Hunk actually no longer do dares with Lance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can't we count yours as the… friend thing?” Keith asked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The friendship palooza? No, no, no. That wasn’t a dare, that was just a buddy helping a buddy out.” Lance shook his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith scrunched up his face, “What? I was helping you, too!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, but you said it was a dare.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Well, what's the difference?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance sniffed and crossed his arms, "If you don't know, then you don't get to know."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith furrowed his eyebrows, “You're just saying that because you don't know either.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I know plenty, thank you very much-" He stopped and Keith could actually pinpoint the exact moment an idea came to him, "-Mullet." The smug smile that came over his face </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He scowled at the blue paladin, "I don't like that look…"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith's heart jumped into his throat as Lance stepped impossibly close to Keith. He stared wide-eyed at the slightly taller paladin as he felt a hand gently grab a tuft of Keith’s hair. What- what is happening? , even his brain stuttered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you think about a haircut?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With no ability to think, Keith answered in a Lance-induced daze, "Okay."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This feels a lot meaner than my dare,” Keith grumbled loudly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Damn Lance and his masculine wiles , Keith internally cursed. Of course on a planet full of hairless lizard people and robots, there has to be a barbershop and Lance has to choose that as Keith’s dare. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Well, it’s a little generous to call it a barbershop. There were just a few hair cutting machines in the very back of the shop. Most of the store, as far as he could tell, was for clothes and other accessories. The whole set-up was fully automated, with no workers in the shop and no customers either due to the celebrations outside. It was nice to have some privacy, but the automation also meant that every time he moved just a little bit too much, the machine shoved him back into the chair. It also looked like a wasp nest on top of his head, which Lance had a grand time cackling over.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance peeked his head up from whatever rack he was looking at in the store to answer Keith's original grumblings, “Don’t be a baby, not mullet, you agreed to this.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith scoffed and crossed his arms as the repetitive snip-snap of the scissors continued. Left to basically just sit while the machine worked, he tried to listen in to what Lance was doing beyond what was visible to Keith.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you even doing over there?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He got no reply. At first, it was a lot of shuffling around and moving things out of the way. Those noises were barely audible over the hair-cutting monstrosity on his head. What did cut through however was a distinctive interested ‘Ooo’ noise from Lance. After that, in order, he heard a yelp, a crash, and then something falling over.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Lance?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith tried to turn his head but was swiftly shoved back into place by the machine. There was a moment of silence and then yet another series of crashes and yelps. It sounded like the blue paladin was trying to wrestle a small animal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Lance, I’m turning this thing off and coming over there-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You better not!” The paladin in question shouted back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of course, that’s what he responds to, Keith grumpily crossed his arms and sunk back into the chair. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eventually, a very satisfied ‘Ha!’ came from behind him. Lance had won the battle he was fighting apparently. The noise that sounded afterward, however, made him wish that Lance had lost. An awful scraping like nails on a chalkboard screeched through the empty shop. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh my god, what are you...” Keith trailed off when Lance finally dragged his feet out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bam!” Lance said, his hands on his hips. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s absolutely no way that Lance was wearing that. Keith’s mind refused to believe that he was wearing that . At the same time, it would be a thousand times more embarrassing if this was his fantasy. There was just no way that Lance -paladin of the blue lion, defender of the universe- was wearing glittery, navy blue, thigh-high heels. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What the fuck are those?” Keith blurted out, eyes narrowed at the shoes in question.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance scoffed, “It’s called fashion , not mullet, look it up. Shoes like these are how I got my first girlfriend and how I got my first kiss from a guy. At different times, obviously.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Obviously...” Keith parroted, still in shock.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They were literally not even functional for Lance. The foot portion, which was normal for most of the planet population, was absurdly longer and narrower than what the blue paladin could comfortably wear.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith forced his eyes to stay lower than Lance’s knee. “Do those even fit?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good question! No, they are very painful.” He said. Now, Keith was even more confused.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then why are you…?” Keith didn’t know how to end the question. Wearing thigh-high alien high heels? He wouldn't give Lance the satisfaction of forcing him to say that out loud.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance seemed to get it though as he smirked at him, “Because of this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Awkwardly, to the point where Keith barked out a laugh at the robotic movements, Lance turned sideways. Keith didn’t understand why that changed anything until his eyes pulled up from Lance’s feet to his- OH WOW, THE CEILING IS SUDDENLY VERY INTERESTING , Keith immediately forced himself to examine the sandstone roof. What beautiful craftsmanship. Wow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I- what- I-” Keith stuttered out, unable to string together an actual sentence. Why is it so hot in here right now?, he squirmed in his seat so much that the machine gave him a verbal warning as well as its usual shove.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bam!” Lance struck a pose.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith could see it in just a flicker of movement from the mirror and his traitorous eyes glanced back at Lance through the reflection. The blue paladin -either unsympathetic to Keith’s plight or was willfully ignorant of the way Keith’s face was redder than a tomato- had shuffled his feet to move closer to Keith. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know we are studying time loop quantum physics, but the real question is what is the science behind these heels making my butt look this good?” Lance switched poses again, now right next to the chair Keith was trapped in. He was dragging his hand from his ankle all the way up to his- Stop looking at Lance’s butt!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith decided at that moment that this was not, in fact, a haircut, it was psychological torture. He felt like he was short-circuiting. Briefly, he wondered if he could bang his head against the counter and knock himself out until the time loop restarted. If he was kept in that stupid chair any longer, he would self-combust.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For once, the universe answered his prayers and did him a favor. The ding of the hair-cutting machine went off and Lance stopped his posing. They both watched intently (likely for different reasons) as the machine released its hold on his head and...</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hadn’t really thought about it at any point until now, but he doesn’t remember if there was a time where his hair wasn’t long. The one constant in his life was his mullet. Truthfully, he was almost unrecognizable even to himself when he looked into the mirror. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The shorter bangs opted to stay on his forehead just around his eyebrows rather than directly in his eyes. He hadn’t seen it, but the back of his neck felt a lot colder and more exposed without his hair there. It had the same fluffiness that he’s pretty sure he got from his ma ( Is that a Galra thing?, he wondered, not for the first time), but it was much more neatly cropped on the sides. Generally, he doesn’t like it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Honestly, he forgot where he was and who was in the room as he inspected his hair. That is, until Lance said with a completely blank expression, “Oh, Keith… Oh my gosh.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Instantly, Keith panicked, “What??” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He desperately tried to turn his head so he could see the back of his hair in the mirror. Did this dumb machine carve its initials into my hair or something? , Keith fumed internally. Haircuts suck, he was never getting one again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance waved off his panicked energy, “No. It’s good, great even.” His face still hadn’t changed, “I’m just going into mourning.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The blue paladin dramatically fell into the chair and sighed. He looked like a true thespian in an age-old tragedy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith continued to pick at the much shorter hair on the back of his head, “Mourning?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ve murdered… my... sense of fashion!” He lamented with his head in his hands, “I can’t believe you got your stupid mullet to grow on me! Even with a nice new haircut...” Lance cried.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith had no clue what was happening. He thought he would have been insulted if A) he wanted a haircut or B) it was permanent (or at least, not for just the loop). For now, all he thought was that Lance liked his mullet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> With a sly grin, one he’d learned from Shiro’s endless teasing, he asked, “So what you are saying is… You like my mullet?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance immediately snapped out of his bemoaning state to deny the accusations, “What? No, that is not what I am saying. I never said that” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hm, I think you just did.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, I didn't.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes, you did.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“ No .”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yes~"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I would never! That's slander, mullet- I mean NOT mullet! Ugh, whatever!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes. I think you said-” Keith imitated Lance’s voice, “- 'Holy crow, Keith! Your mullet is just so amazing! I love your mullet. Mullets, mullet, fashion, wow.” Ok, he didn’t know how to do impressions, but he thinks the first part was pretty good.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wow, you really captured my likeness.” Lance conceded graciously, “Except not! Cause I would never say such a thing, you fool!” He threw his arms up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fine, fine, it wasn’t a great imitation. But, you do like my mullet.” Keith pressed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I- I-” Lance floundered, face flushed, “I just remembered the second part of this dare! Yeah, right! I forgot to tell you!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Wait what? , Keith frowned. He shook his head, “You can’t just make up more of a dare because you like my mullet.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Stop! Slander! Besides, I have been working on this part of the dare for much longer than just right now. I would never be so careless with my dares. We’re going to do a runway!” Lance cheered excitedly and did jazz-hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before Keith could even respond to the 'runway' announcement, the blue paladin reached out for Keith's newly shortened hair, "Let me just style your hair." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Like a cat arching its back to avoid being pet, Keith recoiled and dodged, "Don't touch my hair!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance persisted anyway. The red paladin jumped out of the chair he was recently freed from to avoid Lance's grubby hands. He half-expected to be chased around the store by the heel-wearing paladin (Stop looking there!), but once he got out of range, the blue paladin just stuck out his tongue at him in disapproval.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wait, wait, why do you get two dares??” Keith questioned, now at a safer distance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not two dares, it’s a two-part dare. Singular, but in sections. First, the hair cut, then showing it off.” Lance said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s not how that works.” Keith shook his head. It felt weird to not have his hair in his eyes while he did so. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know what I think? I think Mr. Chicken is scared to do a fashion show, eh?” Lance raised an eyebrow, clearly trying to goat Keith.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That trick only works once, Lance!” He argued, still remembering being called a chicken from the last dare. That was clearly a lie, and they both knew it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you a coward? A scaredy-cat?” The blue paladin asked mockingly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith narrowed his eyes. He knew what Lance was doing, but couldn’t stop the rising anger, “Lance…” He growled.   </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance waved him off, “No, no, wait! I have more! A big baby? Um… what’s that one Coran says sometimes...” He snapped his fingers, “Oh, yes! A namby-pamby? How about a-?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fine!” Keith shouted, “I’ll do your stupid second dare.” If only to stop Lance from endlessly listing synonyms for a coward.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance gave a thumbs-up, “Great! So anyway, can you drag me back to my shoes? I can’t walk in these.” He smiled innocently like he hadn’t just bullied Keith into doing another dare.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith smiled back, “You can figure it out yourself.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He ignored the whines of his fellow paladin as he walked out of the store. Maybe that was a little petty, but new haircut, new Keith. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith didn’t care what Lance said, he was taking over the script and counting this as the third dare. That means that he’s either going to have to give two dares back to Lance or one very big dare. He still doesn’t get how these rules work actually.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On the elevator ride up, Lance had been talking on comms to someone (probably Hunk) about ‘setting everything up’. Suspicious, but Keith was on a mission to find something for his next dare. He tried to look out at the parade to see if some shop vendor sold something Lance didn't like. His view, however, was blocked by the holographic snake that weaved its way above the street as it did every loop-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey! Hey!” Keith actually jumped as Lance gripped his arm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Apparently, Lance was done talking to Hunk, “What.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Pick an entrance song!” The blue paladin declared and shoved his phone into Keith’s hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He took it and messed around on the app, “Why do you only have one playlist on your phone?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, well, I thought ‘ah even as far out as Mars has cell service these days! I don’t need to download things’ which in hindsight, not a great decision. However! My Tía Abuela doesn’t trust those new 20G towers and thinks they cause cancer. Soooo, the only playlist I have is my playlist I use when my whole family is around for parties and stuff.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was a reasonable enough story, except when Keith actually looked at the songs on the playlist.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“SexyBack is on here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance gave him an odd look and whistled, “What a choice!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, that’s not my... You have SexyBack- ” Keith made sure to enunciate the words, “ - on your ‘music for the fam’ playlist? The playlist you’d play for, like, your grandma?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> Lance tsked, “Well duh, not mullet! It’s one of her favorites. If you even have to ask, you clearly don’t know my Abuela. She moves like no one told her she’s 80.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith shuddered at the thought of an 80-year-old grandma dancing to a song called SexyBack , “Right.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Soooo, what’s your song? If not SexyBack .”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He scrolled through the playlist and listened to different snippets of music. The more he played, the more he became fully aware that Lance was the sole creator based on the song selection. That or everyone in Lance’s family had similar taste. Considering his grandma’s favorite song... He could only imagine the idea of a house full of Lances. Shivers ran down his spine.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do I have to pick-?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith glared at Lance while he messed with his now shorter bangs. The blue paladin could have at least put on good old songs, like Radiohead or whatever. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Finally, he decided to choose the least bad option, which given the selection wasn’t saying much. “ Bad Romance .” He handed back the phone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, very good choice! Very apt! And just in time…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The elevator dinged to alert them that they’d reached the Penthouse. Before they could walk out, though, Lance stopped the doors from opening.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you doing?” Keith messed with his hair again, unable to stop the habitat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance looked at him with a grin, “Building suspense for the audience. They can hear the doors opening, ya know? You never show up early to a party, not mullet.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can do that?” Keith looked closer at the untranslated buttons, “What if someone needs to use the elevator?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can and they don’t. I’ve tested it before. No one uses it for most of the day.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He has no clue why Lance tested that, but he believed him anyway. He can’t imagine being stuck alone in a time loop for that long and not doing weird stuff like pushing random buttons and/or building elevator timetables.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Besides, you’re nervous.” His face wasn’t teasing or unkind when he said it, but the red paladin still recoiled a little bit. It wasn’t a question. Lance simply stated it and then it was. Keith was just a little bit nervous. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Why are you at all nervous?, He asked himself, You can fly Red into battle no problem, but a catwalk is scary??</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe.” He ran his hand through his hair and shifted his feet. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance nodded sagely, “That’s alright. Listen, I know this is a dare, but right now you’re my model. So repeat after me, okay?” Lance looked directly into Keith’s eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Um, okay.” Keith agreed, wide-eyed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am amazing and am going to do great.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith scoffed, “Really?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“BAP BAP BAP!” Lance pinched his hand together and shook his head, “Repeat it, Keith!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He felt like a little kid as he grumbled, “I am... amazing and am going to do great.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance happily continued, “I am going to kill this catwalk.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am going to kill this catwalk.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am roguishly handsome.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith blushed profusely at the indirect compliment. Apparently, he took too long, as Lance motioned for him to repeat it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am-” He coughed awkwardly, “-roguishly handsome.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And I have gotten rid of my stupid mullet so I am going to show off my beautiful new hair to the world.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That was far too long and also completely untrue so instead, he said, “And Lance likes my mullet.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance sputtered and stomped his foot, “I never said that! That is a lie! From my own model!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith shrugged with a smirk. The blue paladin glared at him but didn’t say more. Clearly, he had decided that Keith was ready, or at least ready enough. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In all honesty, Keith had no idea what he expected when Lance said he set up a catwalk for him. Maybe a little walkway or just a hallway cleared out. What he clearly did not take into account was the reason why Hunk didn’t do dares with Lance anymore. That being, Lance’s ability to put 110% into the stupidest things.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Wall to wall in the hallway in front of the elevator, it looked like every heavy blanket in the entire penthouse was intricately draped to create a makeshift backdrop. Music from speakers in completely unknown places played Bad Romance. From the smallest sliver between the two sides of the blanket monstrosity, Keith could see some bright lights.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He pointed to the newly installed curtain with his eyes as wide as dinner plates, “None of this was here this morning. This is insane. Lance, you are insane.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Aw, thank you! I’m glad it turned out alright.” Lance smiled proudly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith gave him a befuddled look, “That wasn’t a compliment. When did you even do this?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, I’ve been planning everything for a few loops while we were at lunch. I told Pidge and Hunk what we were doing and they um…” Lance’s face went a little red, “They very excitedly agreed to help me set everything up...” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith’s eyes turned back to the wall. He could, upon further inspection, tell that the set-up was meticulously crafted in the science duo’s style, “They’re probably just happy we aren’t fighting anymore.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance fervently nodded, “Right, yes, exactly that. Anyways so they set everything up, and luckily -you know how I wake up earlier than you because of those stupid broken alarm clock?- Well, Allura, Coran, and Shiro also wake up early because Alteans hate sleep and Shiro is superman. So I taught them basic audience etiquette for the show. And I also did a little 3D printing… I think that’s it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance does wake up earlier, hence why he was already in the pool during the first time loop Keith got caught in. However, Keith was almost certain that he woke up maybe a varga or so earlier. How he managed to teach everyone everything, describe to Pidge and Hunk what he wanted, and also 3D print whatever he did was totally beyond Keith. He really needed to step up his dare game apparently.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So, I was thinking I go first, teach you the ropes and everything. You gotta watch, but make sure you can’t be seen. That would be unprofessional. And then, BAM!” Lance shouted so loud that Keith wondered if the ‘audience’ could hear it behind the curtains and over the music, “Star of the show, new and improved Keith Kogane! Then maybe we do an open catwalk. I want to see Coran try and do a model walk.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Was Keith dreaming or something? Did he hit his head? “You are insane.” He repeated, just to make sure the blue paladin knew his opinion.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Stop, you’re going to make me blush before I go on stage.” Lance waved him off, “Ok, the song’s at a good place, are you ready to watch?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith shrugged. He was going to do this one way or another, so now as good a time as ever. Lance gave a thumbs up and then walked out. What had Keith gotten himself into?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Positioning himself behind the makeshift curtain, Keith watched through the small sliver of an opening like a little kid eavesdropping on an adult's party. From what he could see of the audience, Hunk, Pidge, and Allura were on one side and Coran and Shiro were on the other. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All of them had those ridiculous 3D-printed, heart-shaped glasses in colors matching their uniforms (Coran’s being white). The princess and the science duo even had imitations of those rich lady shawls which he could recognize as the thinner, silk-like blankets from around the penthouse.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The only ones who really pulled off the high-brow look were Allura, Coran, and surprisingly Hunk (though knowing Lance, he’s probably done this before). All three looked perfectly snooty, with straight faces, light clapping, and hushed whispers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Pidge looked a little too much like a kid in her parents' clothes, but there was something about her aura that was beyond intimidating. Shiro… well, it was a weird way to describe their typically stoic leader, but Shiro was far too smiley to be an art critic. He looked like he was constantly two seconds away from cheering and/or laughing. How unprofessional.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now Lance, while walking the ‘runway’, looked like he was an actual model. And not just because of Keith’s… embarrassing crush. He flowed like water in front of the crowd, each step filled with purpose and grace. He paused at certain points along the “walkway”, posed, and then continued. Each was met with polite applause and light oohs and ahhs from their friends.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The incompressible chorus of Bad Romance , which honestly just sounded like a bunch of gibberish to Keith, played as Lance finally turned around at the end. He stopped and then winked directly at the hidden paladin behind the curtain. Keith, needless to say, went beet red and shied away from the small crack he was watching through.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eventually, Lance opened the curtain again to walk back in, “So you got it? Or should I go again?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith shook his head, “No, no, I think I’ve got it. Just walk, pause, pose, and continue sometimes.” Lance nodded with a thumbs up, “I’m just thinking...”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thinking about?” Lance prompted.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How much planning I have to do for my next dare.” Keith once again looked around at the blanket curtains.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, we’re doing another round of dares?” There was a dangerous gleam of excitement in Lance’s eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, you were the one who started another round of dares with all this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Untrue, not mullet, but we don’t have time to argue about why you’re wrong. If you’re ready, you’ve gotta skedaddle.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith moved to go, but Lance stopped him quickly, “Wait, wait, wait! Go in...” Lance paused to mouth the lyrics and then counted down, “5, 4, 3, 2-” The blue paladin shoved him towards the opening curtains.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“ Walk, walk, fashion baby. Work it, move that bitch crazy. ” blared the song through the speakers as he started the catwalk.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith followed the lyric’s directions and tried to imitate Lance’s previous strides. He’s pretty sure his ‘walk’ was coming off more like a toddler that accidentally started walking on the runway than one that moved that bitch crazy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“ Walk, walk, fashion baby. Work it, move that bitch crazy. ”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beyond the bright lights on the sides of the ‘runway’, Keith could just barely see the expressions of their friends. From absolutely flabbergasted (Shiro) to a pinch of astonishment (Pidge), there was shock on everyone's faces at his shortened hair. Well, hopefully, it was just about his hair and not about how bad he’s doing.  Don’t look at them, look at the end of the runway , a voice that sounded like Lance said in his head, just keep walking .</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“ Walk, walk, fashion baby. Work it, move that bitch crazy. ”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was glad that the penthouse permanently smelled of pollen and flowers because he was sure that without it, they would be able to smell the nervousness coming off him like a shark to blood. Finally, he reached the end of the runway. He posed like Lance had done and turned around to leave as fast as humanly possible.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“ Walk, walk, passion baby. Work it, I'm a free bitch, baby. ” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Although he was vehemently trying not to look at the audience of their friends, he noticed Allura, unsurprisingly, was the first to recover and start the stupid golf clap thing. She smiled at him and he felt himself breathe again. Shiro still looked shocked but mixed in a heavy helping of ‘proud dad’™ that was entirely too much. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t stop or pose the entire way back, hoping to speed run his embarrassment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As soon as he got back behind the curtains, he announced, “That was horrible. I hated that. I’m never doing that again.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance laughed, “Well no one will remember it tomorrow.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I will, Lance. I will.” He shuddered. At least he can now add runway model to his resume right after Defender of the Universe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You did great though!” Lance smiled reassuringly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I did?” Keith raised an eyebrow. There’s no way that was true. He felt like he was dying the whole time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, yeah! You really nailed that blank face look when you were walking out.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thanks,” Keith gave a small smile. Then he realized that Lance couldn’t see him walk out from  behind the blankets, “Wait a minute-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come on! We gotta go greet our dear audience, not mullet!” The blue paladin paused the song, grabbed his hand, and then pulled him out onto the main stage before he could even retort. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hands intertwined, they bowed in front of the audience. Everyone cheered as they did so. Coran threw flowers at them -thankfully not the ones that moved. For once, he’s glad for his stupid, gross crush on Lance because all he could think about was their hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance grinned like a showman, “Okay, to continue the runway, Hunka bunka, o’ friend o’ pal? You coming up here?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hunk shook his head, “Oh, no, no, no. I am not a model-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance immediately stopped him, “You gorgeous son of a gun, you and I both know that your only flaw is being straight! You gotta try it!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With some more persuasion, Hunk bowed to Lance’s pressure, although Keith’s sure that if he really didn’t want to, the blue paladin would have relented. With a new song ( Gimme More according to Lance), the yellow paladin strutted the runway. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now Lance may be a great model, but by all the rules of decorum Keith had seen from their short stint on the catwalk, he was an absolutely terrible audience member. He clapped a little too loud and even cheered as Hunk passed. It might not be ‘proper', but Hunk seemed to have a little more bounce in his step when he did so. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Soon after the yellow paladins’ turn, Allura wanted to try. Then Coran called dibs, or whatever the Altean equivalent of dibs was, on trying it next. It opened up the runway to become a little more commentary and dancing than the previous turns after that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It also allowed Keith to sneak away to the water (or what he assumed was H2O, you never know in space) pitcher further into the common area. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Away from the lights and the cheering, Keith finally took a breath and poured himself a cup of whatever this was. He’s very glad that the planet they got stuck on at least has universally edible food. Poisoning, even if for just a day, would not be fun.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with short hair.” A voice said from behind him. Shiro, who else really, had come to check up on him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith huffed out a laugh, “I don’t think I have either. It was a dare.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The black paladin nodded, “Lance told us earlier. He was very adamant about everything going right. He’s got a weird way of proving his ‘rivalry’ with you. I did not think he’d get you to go along with it though, ‘rivals’ or not.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith shrugged noncommittally. They aren’t ‘rivals’ anymore -never really were on Keith’s end, but whatever- but he’s pretty sure there’s no way he could explain that without explaining everything else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you like the haircut?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith glanced over at Lance, who was directing Coran on his walk, with the smallest upturn of his lips, “No, not really.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No?” Shiro tilted his head, “You’re very… How would Pidge say it… not emo for not liking it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Normally, Keith would have scowled at being called ‘not emo’, but his small grin only grew as he repeated Lance’s words, “I’m roguishly handsome.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro looked stunned, but still grinned, “O-kay? I like the self-confidence.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith took a sip from his drink, “And Lance admitted that he liked my mullet.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro huffed out a laugh and clapped Keith on the shoulder (which nearly made him spill his drink), “Keith, I don’t think anyone mentions someone’s hair that much without liking it. Still, he’ll have to wait a while for it to grow back…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith stared back blankly. He wouldn’t say a few hours is- Oh, right. Shiro wasn’t in this whole time situation with him… </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Speaking of… you and Lance have really made up, huh?” Shiro wiggled his eyebrow and ruffled Keith’s short hair. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith slapped his hand away, “What do you mean?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I just mean yesterday you were… well, and today… I’m not saying anything. Just that you guys are very buddy-buddy~”  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shiro, I swear I will kick you-” He immediately threatened. Shiro set down his own drink, seemingly in response to the threat, but kept smugly smiling.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s glad that everyone else was trying out the catwalk, which was out of hearing range. Except… Everyone else wasn’t trying out the catwalk when he checked where they were. They were coming over here and the black paladin, who was facing away, didn’t see them. Oh shit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I mean, you got a haircut just because he asked and you were holding hands-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith cut him off and hissed, “ Shut up .” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro, however, did not shut up, “And he likes your mullet, Mr. Roguishly Handsome. Did he call you that too?~” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No!” Keith lied. It was totally unconvincing. The black paladin looked like his leap-year birthday came early. “Shiro, stop!” Keith yell-whispered, once again trying to stop him before the others made their way into hearing range.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He did!” The pure joy in Shiro’s eyes was highly offensive, “Oh, just let me know next time you go on a date with- ACK! ”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A swift kick to the shin shut him up real quick. Keith did warn him and it wasn’t that strong anyway. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Cheese and rice, Keith!” Shiro yelped and clutched his leg as he fell into the common area seating. He was being a big baby about it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sorry, Shiro. Say stupid shit, get kicked in the shin.” More accurately, almost talk about Keith’s crush in front of said person, get kicked in the shin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, can that be our official policy?” Pidge asked. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He really hoped that the last thing he said was all they heard. Shiro immediately caught his eyes in a moment of understanding, although he was still playing up his pain like the wimp he was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hunk took a step out of the range of Pidge’s kicking distance and added on, “I don’t think kicking people in the shins is very diplomatic.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance fervently nodded in agreement, “Yeah, we should step on them instead! Establish dominance!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Although it was clearly not what Hunk meant, the two still high-fived and smiled with an energy that could rival a sun. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lance’s attitude alone made it obvious that this was a ‘first-time pathway’, something completely new to the time loop. The blue paladin happily kept up with the conversation as they discussed what counted as a diplomatic way to introduce themselves (with some… interesting anecdotes from Coran as always).</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But how did kicking Shiro even come about in the first place?” Allura asked at some point in their discussion.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith, who was racking his brain for any kind of answer, was luckily saved by Shiro’s quick intervention. “I said that Mothman wasn’t real.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Purely on instinct, Keith retorted, “Mothman is real, you filthy non-believer.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Eh, I think Shiro’s right on this one, Keith.” Pidge shrugged. “It was probably an owl that just scared some people.” Hunk nodded in agreement with Pidge.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s what the government wants you to think!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Actually, I think Keith’s right.” Lance added, “Mothman’s real.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Everyone in the room turned to the blue paladin in shock. Before all this, Lance would not only disagree with Keith on everything but also sometimes go out of his way to change his answer just to spite the red paladin. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of course, on this topic, they absolutely should agree as they have both met Ya-Ya the intergalactic trader who was at least a part of Mothman’s species. Didn’t change the fact that not even biting the inside of his cheeks could stop the victorious smile from building on his face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh wow, you really are buddy-buddy with him,” Shiro said with awe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hunk sputtered out something along the lines of, “Since when did you- You and Keith- You’re agreeing with-?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Pidge picked up the slack and nearly shouted, “You agree with Keith about Mothman ??”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Who exactly is this Mothman?” Allura chimed in, likely trying to find the great importance of the person that could get them both to agree. Keith immediately turned to her in a way that made the princess jump.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He spoke as quickly as possible, “Mothman is a cryptid on Earth. Most illustrations show that he’s pitch black in color and has red eyes. The first sighting was on November 15, 1966-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro slapped his hand over Keith’s mouth, “Okay, no, we’re not starting that-” Keith licked his hand to force him to let go, “Ew! Keith!” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The other paladins burst out laughing at the disgust on Shiro’s face, but Keith was on a mission, to tell the truth, “Mothman is famous in West Virginia. They’re estimated to be 6.5 and 7 feet tall with-.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro put his other (metal) hand over Keith’s mouth, not allowing the same trick to work twice. Now, Keith did remember that this was a time loop, but! What if this was somehow the last day of the time loop. Or if by telling the whole truth, they could escape the time loop (like that one movie, hedgehog day, or whatever, that Lance told him about). With that in mind, he was morally obligated to spread the real truth about the unknown. Keith looked at Lance and Lance looked at Keith.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, not mullet, isn’t Mothman’s wingspan around 10 feet?” Lance asked with a smug smile.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith’s stomach filled with a thousand butterflies about the fact that Lance actually listened to his cryptid ramblings. Shiro, on the other hand, looked like his soul just left his body. He must have realized that he was finally going to lose the Mothman debate once and for all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Princess, don’t we have to talk about the ‘small gathering’ that’s happening later?” Shiro said with a forced grin.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, yes! We can discuss more about this... Mothman and how many of your feet tall and across he is later.” Allura clapped her hands together.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh Shiro, no! Why the meeting??” Lance bemoaned. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro and Allura likely assumed that Lance was groaning about meetings in general -because why would they think he was groaning about being in a time loop and going to literally the same meeting several times. That got a tag-team lecture™ from both of them about the importance of understanding cultural differences.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Keith, however, didn’t mind it as much. He had a new dare to think about for the entirety of the meeting. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So um… To quote Britney Spears, It’s been a while… I know I shouldn’t have kept you waiting… But I’m here now.</p>
<p>As a sorry present, please watch this video. It’s the greatest video in the world. I will never make anything as funny as this: https://youtu.be/7X0gqusNqyU</p>
<p>And here is some embarrassing fanart I made if you're curious about some looks I was going for in this chapter: https://imgur.com/a/gFtFOZk</p>
<p>Believe it or not, this chapter is the split of another even bigger chapter. I need someone to murder me before I keep writing things not even close to relevant to the plot. I decided to break up the chapter bc I decided you folks (who are amazing and beautiful) deserve something after over a friggin’ month of nothing. I will probably be editing the last part later?? I just... bleh. I have so many ideas for scenes in my head but writing them is like taking a drive through clown town, population: me.</p>
<p>Anyways maybe I like writing/reading about time because I have no sense of time management. Thanks for reading another installment of “aaaAAAAHHHHH”. Hope you enjoyed it! You folks are great! &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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